EU foreign ministers extend mandate for naval operation off Libya

EU foreign ministers, in an extended debate on people-smuggling on the central Mediterranean route between Libya and Italy, have agreed to extend the mandates of the EU Sophia naval operation which Ireland agreed last week to join, and of the EU civilian mission which works with the Government on planning in security, borders and criminal justice.

Meeting in Brussels on Monday, they also agreed to impose an embargo on the supply of dinghies and engines to Libya.

At a bilateral meeting between Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and British foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Mr Coveney discussed his recent visit to the Middle East and the prospects for an expected US peace initiative to reignite dialogue.

The foreign ministers' meeting heard from representatives of the UN High Commission for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration of limited recent success in persuading some 5,000 refugees in Libya's detention camps to return south to their countries of origin. But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini expressed strong concern about the conditions in some of the camps and said an important, central part of the Sophia mandate lay in its training of the coastguard to improve the treatment of refugees.

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Burden sharing

Mr Coveney said the meeting heard complaints from Italy that the naval mission and the NGO ships that were also rescuing refugees from the sea off the Libyan coast were all bringing them to Italy, which wanted to see greater efforts at burden sharing in resettlement and returns. He said Ireland sympathised with the Italian position.

He defended the switch of the Naval Service to the Sophia operation and insisted that in its new role the service, which has had a ship involved in rescues in the Mediterranean for three years – to date taking some 18,000 from the water – would continue primarily in the search-and-rescue work it excelled at.

Others would concentrate on the other parts of the operation mandate, such as interceptions of arms and people smugglers’ supplies or the training of coastguards. He hoped it would be possible for the mission to work inside Libyan territorial waters.

Ministers also approved in principle the establishment of an EU civilian mission to Iraq to work with the government to reorganise the security services in the wake of the fall of Mosul.  And they condemned the recent test by North Korea of an "inter-continental ballistic" missile, pledging to work closely with allies through the UN to step up sanctions.