How much is a human life worth? How many more people have to die to generate enough momentum for Europe to intervene? Unfortunately these are not rhetorical questions. More than 1,500 people have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean on their way from north Africa since the start of 2015. Many Europeans are wondering how much longer Europe can ignore the tragedy unfolding on its doorstep while politicians and policy-makers weigh up the political and economic cost of saving lives at sea.
Italy argued that its search-and-rescue Mare Nostrum operation, which saved 150,000 asylum seekers and migrants in 12 months at an estimated cost of €9m a month, was economically unsustainable to run. Mare Nostrum was duly replaced by the Frontex-led Triton operation.
This scaled-back programme, which had originally been conceived to support Mare Nostrum and ended up replacing it, only stretched to 30 miles off European coastlines at a cost of roughly one third of the programme it replaced. EU officials argued Triton would deliver better value for money—but, tragically, you get what you pay for. Triton is certainly smaller in scale and has a narrower mandate—to police and monitor European sea borders rather than carry out rescue operations, including in international waters. But with so many dead already this year, is the political sustainability of Triton now to be called into question?
