Din its edition of November 13, 2022, The world revealed that the staff of the regional operational center for maritime surveillance and rescue (Cross) in Gris-Nez (Pas-de-Calais) had not provided assistance to shipwrecked people crossing the Channel, in November 2021; 27 of them had died. This lack of assistance could, at first glance, be attributed to incompetent staff. However, on closer examination of their argument, two lines of defense are identifiable.
In the first, the rescuers refer to international and European laws to justify their irresponsibility, by linking the obligation of rescue to the principle of sovereignty. Protecting state borders takes precedence over protecting lives: “While, at 3:30 a.m., a passenger explained that he was literally ‘in the water’, the Cross persisted in retorting: ‘Yes, but you are in English waters’. » This reference to territorialized responsibility is shared by their English counterparts: “By the time they got there, the waves would have taken us into French territorial waters,” Therefore “they didn’t come”reports a survivor.
A second, more indirect justification presents the castaways as responsible for their situation. They chose to break the laws by “illegally” crossing the English Channel: “Ah well you don’t hear, you won’t be saved. My feet are in the water, well… I didn’t ask you to leave. »
Delegation of powers
These responses are omnipresent in European political discourse, which systematically refers to laws to justify their irresponsibility, while maintaining a moral posture. The reference to border protection is supplemented by the principle of delegation. Since 2000, European states have increasingly outsourced migration management to private actors and non-European states. This process known as outsourcing is justified by arguments of efficiency and humanitarianism. It is claimed that it is risky for migrants to cross the Mediterranean or the Channel, and that their well-being would be better ” at their home “ or in neighboring countries.
This delegation of powers also operates within the European Union (EU), in particular through the Dublin Regulation (1997, 2003, 2013). The EU obliges asylum seekers to register their application in the first European country where they set foot – which makes a small minority of European states responsible for the vast majority of asylum applications, notably Italy and the Greece. In reality, this policy shifts responsibility to peripheral countries forming a cordon sanitaire.
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