The Mayor of the Italian city of Palermo has called for the creation of a European Public Service organisation tasked with rescuing migrants at sea.
The Mayor, Leoluca Orlando (pictured) said urgent action was needed following several deadly shipwrecks in the Mediterranean.
Mr Orlando proposed that a service called the Research European Civil Service (RECS) could oversee search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, between northern Africa and southern Europe.
He called for “collaboration between European cities, non-Government organisations and charities, under the sponsorship of the European Union”.
“RECS would create with civil society what the navy did with the Mare Nostrum Operation when military vessels were not used to push back migrants to Libyan detention centres, but to rescue them,” Mr Orlando said.
Italy set up the Mare Nostrum Operation after roughly 400 migrants were killed in two shipwrecks off the coast of Lampedusa in 2013.
The mission reportedly saved and average of 400 migrants stuck in the Mediterranean each day.
However, critics said it was a “pull factor”, encouraging more migrants to set sail for Europe.
Mare Nostrum ended after just one year in November 2014.
Mr Orlando also announced he would host a conference of pro-migrant cities in June to put pressure on European officials.
He said the goal was to “send a strong message of values to the European Commission and the European Parliament to take charge of a European civil rescue service.”
The Mayor, a member of the left-leaning Democratic Party, has often promoted pro-migrant views and policies.
Mr Orlando protested against the closure of ports to migrant rescue ships and awarded migrant rescuers honorary citizenships.
In 2019, he was one of several mayors who refused to implement policies in line with a security decree introduced by then-Minister for the Interior, Matteo Salvini, and registered asylum seekers as full residents.
In June 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that the regulation Mr Orlando had refused to follow was unconstitutional.
Rome, 8 May 2021
