Atlantropa or Bust?

 

Atlantropa was Herman Sörgel’s plan to install a gigantic hydroelectric dam at the Strait of Gibraltar, drain the Mediterranean and combine Africa and Europe into a single uber-continent. Like most German plans from the 1920s, it never amounted to much.

For many, that’s wonderful news because without the Mediterranean, the E.U. would have no chance to secure its border. For the rest, we have this:

“The outer deck was full of people and we presume the interior would also have been full,” said Greek Coast Guard spokesperson Nikos Alexiou. “It looks as if there was a shift among the people who were crammed on board,” which forced the Libyan fishing boat under.

Greek Coast Guard vessels, a navy destroyer and many private ships scrambled to rescue as many as possible from drowning in the Mediterranean. Any sailor would do the same.

The tally? 104 survivors, 86 dead, 560 missing.

It was June 14, 2023, southwest of the Greek city of Kalamata, famous for olives.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that 30,001 people have perished crossing the Mediterranean since 2014, and the U.N. believes more than two million migrants have come into Europe via the Mediterranean. The real numbers are likely higher, since deaths – and crossings – are not supposed to be noticed.

Smugglers bringing migrants to Europe are careful to keep a low profile. They collect between 500-800 euros per “passenger,” according to Deutsche Welle. Tax-free.

In interviews with migrants who made it to Lampedusa, Italy, in 2023, the motivations mentioned included making it to a “better place” or the wish to “support our family, to work, to make our family proud.”

It’s easy to see why migrants would prefer Europe to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, but as many of them are from “safe origin countries,” they don’t qualify for asylum under E.U. rules. And they aren’t legal immigrants who have obtained residency or work visas in the ordinary manner.

Who’s Responsible?

For shipping, the immigration question is where the fireworks start.

A captain’s legal obligation to commit to a rescue is clear, “regardless of the nationality or status of such persons or the circumstances in which they are found,” as set out in Ch. V of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Each time a merchant vessel rescues migrants in distress, it’s fulfilling its duty under the law.

But after the rescue is done, who’s responsible for the migrants?

Merchant vessels have saved over 100,000 migrants in the Mediterranean according to a 2023 white paper by Risk Intelligence. Apart from finding a host state for the migrants, it’s challenging to secure them, feed them and care for them medically.

Maersk Etienne, a product tanker, pulled 27 migrants out of the drink in August 2020. Malta, Spain, France, Italy and Libya, as well as Denmark, as the vessel’s flag state, refused to let the migrants go on land. It wasn’t until after 38 days at sea, with food and water running low, that Mediterranea Saving Humans, a non-governmental organization, sent Mare Jonio, its rescue ship, to relieve Maersk Etienne and end the conundrum.

Also in 2020, using knives, 79 migrants attacked the crew of the cargo vessel Marina, which had rescued them. They had run out of fresh water while waiting for a port to let them dock.

Poverty, the many ships using the Mediterranean, a porous E.U. border and North African political instability leave shipping rescuing migrants that nobody wants.

Foreign Aid?

In camps dotting North Africa’s coastline, migrants gather – with some 650,000 waiting just in Libya – and await their chance to escape. The E.U. is aware and has made deals with Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Mauritania and Tunisia for those states to block migrants going to Europe. They receive financial aid in exchange.

In March 2024, Mauritania took 210 million euros to compensate it for managing migration while Egypt was given 7.4 billion euros along similar lines. Morocco is in the final phases of such a negotiation. These deals are based on the one struck between the E.U. and Tunisia in July 2023, which saw roughly one billion euros in aid linked to tighter border management, i.e., to stopping migrants before they get to Europe.

A 2017 agreement between Italy and Libya rolled out a different model. Nominally under Libyan control but funded and trained by Italy, a Coast Guard cutter would round up migrants and bring them back to shore. In 2018, Nigerian migrants sued Italy for this in the European Court of Human Rights. “Using the Libyan Coast Guard as a proxy to turn back migrant boats is just a new way of (…) trapping them in what the Italian Foreign Ministry itself has qualified as 'the hell' of Libya,” said Violeta Moreno-Lax for the plaintiffs.

The Italian-Libyan agreement was renewed on February 2, 2023.

The lawsuit, meanwhile, has made little progress, as “international rules do not have a specific court where you can litigate” human rights violations, according to Matteo de Bellis, a migration researcher for Amnesty International. That is true.

Absent a monopoly on the use of force, does law exist? Such rights remain a fantasy. Since no global sovereign can bend the nations to its will, we’re left with the maelstrom of politics. “It is not wisdom but authority that makes a law,” as English political theorist Thomas Hobbes noted in Leviathan (1651), his most famous work.

NGOs to the Rescue

Meanwhile, the E.U. has welcomed the involvement of non-governmental organizations who operate rescue ships in the Mediterranean. Many of these are flagged in Germany. Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, all of whom are receiving the rescued migrants, have argued that the “flag state” should “take responsibility” for them instead.

As of January 2024, 13 such rescue ships were arrested in port due to pending legal cases. The cases target “having too many life jackets on board, having inadequate sewage systems for the number of potentially rescued people” or complain about ships “causing environmental pollution,” says the E.U. Agency for Fundamental Rights. “We know this is a tactic to try and stop our operation rather than something that is valid in some way,” remarked Mary Finn, a worker on Ocean Viking, one such rescue ship.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni believes that rescuing migrants only serves to encourage more to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Europe. Italian authorities restrict which ports rescue ships may dock at and limit how many missions they are allowed to carry out, often issuing fines and detention orders.

Now, rescue ships only pick up roughly eight percent of the migrants who reach Italy, compared with 41 percent in 2017. This leaves more migrants for the commercial vessels.

The left hand and the right hand would appear to be at cross-purposes with the national governments most exposed to migrants unwilling to bear the burden.

Money Talks

However, thanks to the money being lavished on migration cooperation agreements in North Africa and Turkey, a repeat of Maersk Etienne or of Marina is unlikely.

On July 16, 2024, an Anglo-Eastern Suezmax tanker, Sabine Seaways, rescued 31 people near Egypt who were clinging to a single-engine, inflatable boat. Those migrants had been spotted by sailors from U.S. Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 79, which was assigned to the Bulkeley, an American destroyer operating nearby. They were turned over to the Egyptian Navy vessel Alal Main 115. That’s 7.4 billion euros for Egypt hard at work.

Attention, merchant vessels: The sea is treacherous, but have you met politics?