Outsourcing Human Rights Violations

What we have already denounced as unlawful for 13 years ago has now supposedly become law with GEAS, the “Common European Asylum Policy.” The General Court of the European Union will have to rule on this — unfortunately, not for several years.

And it’s going to get much worse, because Netzpolitik.org reports: Greece and France are allowing the UN mandate for the Mediterranean mission IRINI to expire in exchange for arms deliveries. Instead, the EU is now also supporting the breakaway eastern Libya with surveillance technology and training for Libyan personnel, who are then supposed to intercept refugee boats. It will no longer be “European officials” from FRONTEX “repelling” the refugees, but militias for whom any means are acceptable as long as they get paid for it.

Instead of curbing the arms trade across the Mediterranean, the follow-up mission to IRINI will now focus on preventing migration. This is stated in a document published by the NGO Statewatch that was submitted for a vote to the Military Committee of the “European Peace Facility” in Brussels. This makes the prevention of refugee flows a military objective of the EU — whereas FRONTEX, with its already borderline tactics, was still a police agency.

The new IRINI mission, however, will not get its hands dirty. Its task is to equip and train militias at a Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) in the eastern capital of Benghazi. A similar facility has existed in the Libyan capital of Tripoli since 2017.

Pullback Instead of Pushback

The pushbacks of refugee boats into the open sea or into Turkish waters — a practice common primarily off the Greek coast — had been ruled European Court of Human Rights had already ruled illegal in a landmark 2012 decision . Instead, there will now be “pullbacks” carried out by various militias, who are unlikely to care about such a ruling. All Frontex has to do is provide these militias with data from its aerial reconnaissance, and others can get their hands dirty.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Read more https://netzpolitik.org/2026/statt-durchsetzung-von-voelkerrecht-eu-mittelmeermission-irini-dient-kuenftig-nur-noch-der-migrationsabwehr/

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