EU court has mixed guidance for NGO migration challenge in Italy

Italian judges hearing the complaint asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for guidance on the case that goes to the heart of disputes over how to respond to the tens of thousands of people risking the perilous crossing from Africa every year. Sea Watch, which patrols the Mediterranean to pick up distressed people - a practice that some European states say encourages migration - is arguing that the port authorities exceeded their authority by detaining the vessels.

The EU's top court said on Monday that officials can detain migrant rescue ships, but only if they can prove there is a real risk to health, safety or the environment, in mixed guidance on a case testing Europe's response to refugees.

German campaign group Sea Watch launched a legal challenge after Sicilian port authorities detained two of its vessels that had rescued migrants in the Mediterranean and taken them to Sicily in 2020. Italian judges hearing the complaint asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for guidance on the case that goes to the heart of disputes over how to respond to the tens of thousands of people risking the perilous crossing from Africa every year.

Sea Watch, which patrols the Mediterranean to pick up distressed people - a practice that some European states say encourages migration - is arguing that the port authorities exceeded their authority by detaining the vessels. The Sicilian ports of Palermo and Empedocle argued at the time that they had searched and detained the vessels on the grounds that they were overcrowded and not registered for search and rescue operations, according to the ECJ.

The Luxembourg-based EU court delivered a mixed ruling which could support arguments on both sides of the case. It said port authorities have the right to check and detain ships under certain circumstances, though the mere fact that a vessel is carrying people rescued at the sea does not offer sufficient grounds for that.

938 PEOPLE HAVE DIED "The number of persons on board, even if greater than that which is authorized, cannot, therefore, in itself, constitute a ground for a control," the court said in a statement.

It also suggested, however, that regularly running search and rescue operations using ships certified for cargo - as was the case for the Sea Watch vessels - could provide sufficient grounds for port authority controls. The ECJ ruling sets out the current state of European law on the issue.

But it will be up to the Sicilian court to rule if the specific circumstances in these cases justified the actions by the port authorities, whether risks to safety were documented well enough, and whether the ports' reaction was proportionate. Tensions between rescue organizations and authorities peaked in 2015, a year when more than a million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe.

The 27-nation EU has since tightened its external borders and asylum laws and paid Turkey, Tunisia, and other states to prevent people from leaving their territory for Europe. Mediterranean arrivals fell to some 123,6000 people in 2019. A similar number of people have made it so far this year, and an estimated 938 people have died on the route, according to data from the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

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