By Nikolai Nielson

 

BRUSSELS, 31 January. - (ANA) - The EU has been mulling sending people rescued in the Mediterranean directly to coastal states outside of Europe, according to an internal EU document.

 

Leaked to EUobserver on Thursday (29 January) by the London-based watchdog Statewatch, the paper proposes creating a “place-of-safety arrangement” that would effectively offshore responsibility for rescued migrants.

 

The ideas were floated by the Danish EU presidency in a paper dated 7 November and discussed internally at the Council, representing member states.

 

It is also a part of a wider array of “innovative solutions”, in the commission’s phrase, that seek to prevent prospective asylum seekers from ever arriving in Europe.

 

“This solution entails maritime operations to detect, intercept or, in cases of distress, rescue refugees and migrants in sea areas under the legitimate control of a coastal state outside the EU, in line with international maritime law,” says the paper.

 

They would then be sent to a reception centre and screened. Another country, also outside Europe, would then process their asylum claims.

 

“Likewise, the coastal state could carry out returns for those who do not apply for asylum, either to their country of origin or to third countries with which it has agreements,” the document says.

 

But human rights groups say the plan risks normalising abuse and death at Europe’s borders.

 

“The EU is creating a system of death in the Mediterranean. Now comes this proposal that is immoral, illegal, and impossible to implement,” Giulia Messmer from NGO Sea-Watch told EUobserver.

 

“European leaders are obviously scraping the bottom of the barrel. With international law and norms under threat from multiple directions, Europe should be setting an example and keeping us all safe – not trying to mimic the cruelty, chaos and division coming out of Trump’s United States,” she added.

 

 

 

 

A pilot project would then be launched on the back of the EU’s new asylum laws that kick into action this June, suggests the paper.

 

Similar ideas were proposed in 2018 when EU leaders demanded the creation of “regional disembarkation platforms”, which essentially mirrors most aspects of the “place-of-safety arrangement”.

 

Such platforms were first floated as ideas by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

 

But questions over human rights quickly surfaced amid fears that the EU would create Guantanamo-like holding centres and lead to likely illegal pushbacks.

 

Tunisia at the time rejected the plan, while Libya was left out of the programme, narrowing the list of potential candidates to Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco.

 

The EU, however, is also now cutting cash-for-migrant deals and placing most of its emphasis on preventing people from ever arriving.

 

In 2024, it agreed to provide Egypt some €7.4bn in budget support and investment in exchange for greater border control and cooperation on migration policy. It had also announced a €1bn deal with Tunisia.

 

And other concepts that seek to create deportation centres in other countries has also raised alarm by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

 

Others still have simply failed.

 

The UK in 2022 secured a deal with Rwanda to offshore asylum. It spent £700m (€800m) and managed to send only four people who had volunteered to go.

 

London scrapped the deal in 2024, under the incoming Labour government, with Rwanda now suing the country for some £100m in damages.

 

 

 

 

The leak comes on the back of a new five-year migration strategy announced Thursday by the European Commission, which also includes tougher language on visas.

 

Among its top priorities is to prevent what it describes as “illegal migration”, while stepping up migration diplomacy.

 

This includes building “comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnerships” with other countries — which typically entail a large transfer EU funds in exchange for border control.

 

Henna Virkkunen, the vice-president of the commission, said the strategy seeks to prevent “illegal migration”, protect those in need and attract new talent Europe.

 

But it also seeks to make it easier to strip countries of visa-free entry, if they don’t accept return of their nationals.

 

Johannes Luchner, a senior European Commission official, had only earlier this week said that visa leverage alone was not sufficient to compel origin countries into compliance.

 

Magnus Brunner, the EU home affairs commissioner, is now saying the EU must deploy every instrument at its disposal to determine who is allowed to enter and who must leave its territory.

 

“We have a richer toolbox for that today that includes visa on the one hand, but also trade and also funding,” he told reporters.

 

But Silvia Carta, a migration expert at the Brussels-based advocacy network Picum, described the strategy as “blackmail” to pressure countries into accepting deportations.

 

“The commission’s new migration strategy turns visas, trade, and development aid into blackmailing tools to pressure third countries to cooperate on deportations,” she said, in an emailed statement.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/31 January 2026 - - -