EU leaders to pledge rescue for migrants, but no fix for problem

BRUSSELS/ROME (Reuters) - European Union leaders will effectively reverse a cutback in rescue operations the Mediterranean on Thursday to try to prevent record numbers of people drowning as they try to flee war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

But an emergency EU summit in Brussels, called after up to 900 went down on a single boat on Sunday, will do little else beyond laying out options, including attacks on smugglers and holding camps for migrants, on which the 28 states are divided.

"With the best will in the world, these issues are not solvable," a senior diplomat said, noting the gulf in living standards north and south of the Mediterranean. "We can only limit the damage."

There were just 28 survivors from Sunday's disaster, which appeared to be the worst ever among migrants fleeing by sea to Europe from north Africa.

A poignant interfaith funeral was held in Malta for 24 victims, the only ones whose bodies have been recovered so far from a ship in which many are believed to have been locked in below deck.

Imam Mohammed El Sadi said what had happened should raise awareness of the migrants' plight while Bishop Mario Grech called for action motivated by love, rather than just the law.

"We can continue to read out the laws like lawyers do, but that is not enough," he said.

A draft EU statement seen by Reuters and expected to be issued around 8 p.m. (2 p.m. EDT) after four hours of talks lists 13 proposals to deal with the pressure of hundreds of thousands of people trying to reach a continent where anti-immigrant political parties are on the rise.

But only the first point, "strengthening our presence at sea", which involves "at least doubling" financing and boosting the naval presence, is likely to translate into action soon.

EARLIER MISSION CLOSED

Italy shut down a mission that saved the lives of more than 100,000 migrants last year because other EU countries refused to pay for it. It was replaced with a smaller EU scheme whose main focus is to patrol the bloc's borders, after countries argued that saving migrants encouraged more to come.

EU officials say that once leaders go round the table making pledges of help, the total increase announced may be greater. But practical, legal and political headaches posed by military action in Libya, setting up "reception centers" abroad or even redistributing refugees around EU states are far from solved.

"This is a political demonstration," the diplomat said, comparing it to EU efforts to present a program to counter terrorism after January's Islamist attack on Paris newspaper Charlie Hebdo. "There's a phenomenon that is not at all new, but there's a dramatic event and we need to look at our strategy.

One of about 50 people protesting against the EU's refugee policies threw a plastic bag filled with jam at the director of operations at the EU border agency Frontex, Klaus Roesler, on Wednesday evening, hitting him in the head, police said.

The attack in Berlin left Roesler’s head and suit covered with dark red jam but did not hurt him and no one was detained.

"WOEFULLY INADEQUATE"

"Operation Triton", in which Frontex has been overseeing about seven ships off the Italian coast with a monthly budget of 2.9 million euros, should get more ships and money, like a similar operation, Poseidon, off Greece.

The Italian operation, Mare Nostrum, ended six months ago after critics, notably Britain and Germany, said it was drawing more would-be migrants by raising the chances of being rescued.

There is still disagreement about this "pull factor" -- an issue also cited against Italian suggestions of setting up camps to process asylum claims in North Africa -- but for the time being EU leaders see public embarrassment at the mass drownings off their shores outweighing popular hostility to immigration.

Italy now estimates as many as 200,000 people will cross to its shores this year, up from about 170,000 reported by the International Organization for Migration for last year.

Amnesty International called the summit proposals "woefully inadequate and shameful", saying they would not end a spiral that has seen nearly 2,000 people lost at sea this year and an estimated 36,000 cross the Mediterranean successfully.

EU officials and diplomats said differences among the states meant the legal mandate of Operation Triton would not be changed to make it explicitly intended to search for migrants and rescue them close to the Libyan coast. However, commanders would have freedom to monitor where they wished to bar illegal entry to EU waters - and must under maritime law rescue anyone in trouble.

Other proposals include "surgical strikes" on boats about to be used by people smugglers and other intelligence-led actions to "destroy the business model" of human traffickers in the way that international powers clamped down on Somali pirates.

However, diplomats said some states insisted that would need a U.N. Security Council mandate that the EU was unlikely to get in the middle of its confrontation with veto-holding Russia.

Adding to the complexity, the group which controls the part of Libya around Tripoli said it would "confront" any such EU military action against its coastline.

Efforts to dissuade people trying to reach Libya, where the collapse of authority after the EU-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 has made it a magnet for migrants, would focus on helping Libya's neighbors control their borders with it.

The draft also called for a new "rapid return" program for failed asylum seekers, far from straightforward, and for EU staff to process asylum requests abroad. But there is widespread scepticism about the idea of setting up big camps that could attract large numbers of people.

Addressing the uneven distribution of refugees and asylum seekers around the bloc, with wealthy Germany and Sweden drawing very large numbers, is also difficult, because once inside the EU's visa-free zone, people are free to travel where they like.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis, Paul Taylor, Adrian Croft, Jan Strupczweski and Franceso Guarascio in Brussels and Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin; writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Philippa Fletcher)