European Commission delays decision about Italian law restricting saving of lives in Mediterranean as death toll rises

Rome, Italy - Under the European Union’s complaint mechanisms, the European Commission (EC) has failed in its commitment to assess, within 12 months, separate complaints to investigate Italian law and practices which obstructs search and rescue activities in the Central Mediterranean.

In July 2023, five leading non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI), EMERGENCY, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam Italia and SOS Humanity – submitted five separate complaints about Italian Decree Law 1/2023 and the practice by Italian authorities of systematically assigning distant ports for disembarking survivors rescued at sea.

The NGOs argued that the Decree Law and the distant-port practice are not in line with EU member states’ obligations under European and international maritime law and human rights law, and that they pose a systematic obstruction of civilian search and rescue activities in the Mediterranean.

“As the guardian of the treaties, the European Commission is obliged to ensure that member states respect EU law and its uniform application,” says Marie Michel, policy expert at SOS Humanity.

As the EU’s complaint mechanisms state, the EC must share a preliminary assessment of the complaint within two months of registration and must decide whether to initiate a formal procedure about a violation of EU law by a member state within a year.

“After one year of waiting, the Commission communicated that they need more time to look at our complaints,” says Juan Matias Gil, MSF Search and Rescue Representative. “By stalling time, the Commission condones the systematic obstruction of saving lives in the Mediterranean. We cannot waste more time as the toll of people dying at sea is increasing”.

Italy’s Decree Law 1/2023 states that, following a rescue at sea, humanitarian search and rescue vessels should navigate directly and without delay towards the assigned port of safety, thus preventing them from carrying out more than one rescue operation at a time. This implies that vessels should not assist other boats in distress in the area, in defiance to the international law obligation to provide assistance at sea to people in distress, and despite the huge shortage of rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean – a route on which 893 people have reportedly gone missing this year alone.

Under the distant-port practice – which is not included in any Italian legislation but has been common practice since December 2022 – humanitarian search and rescue vessels are systematically assigned ports of safety in northern rather than southern Italy. This affects both rescued people, whose condition is already extremely vulnerable, and NGO ships; significantly increasing journey times.

“The distant-port practice is a breach of international law,” says Francesca Bocchini, advocacy manager at EMERGENCY. “It exacerbates suffering for the rescued people by delaying their access to essential services; it diverts financial resources away from lifesaving operations; and it pushes search and rescue vessels away from the areas where they are most needed.”

Since 2023, the additional navigation required to reach distant ports has resulted in NGO vessels losing a total of 538 days that could have been spent rescuing people in distress at sea, according to estimates by SOS Humanity.

Decree Law 1/2023 has also been used in 22 instances to detain humanitarian search and rescue vessels in Italian ports, amounting to a total of 480 days of imposed detention, according to data collected by SOS Humanity. In some of these instances, detention was justified simply with the alleged failure of humanitarian search and rescue vessels to comply with the instructions from Libyan Coast Guard during rescue operations in international waters. However, Italian courts subsequently declared some of these detentions to be unlawful, most recently the civil court of Crotone.

“It has been highlighted by different Italian Courts now; the use of this law is violating the obligations set in international conventions on the law of the sea together with the rights of association and opinion of civil society organizations which are also included in EU treaties.” says Lucia Gennari from ASGI. “These are violations that cannot be ignored by European institutions."

“We call on the European Commission to process our complaints and to take immediate action to tackle the legal and administrative obstruction by Italian authorities of civil search and rescue activities,” says Michel. "Europe cannot stay silent while its leaders are creating irresponsible laws that put people’s lives further at risk at sea!”.

For media interviews, please contact:

SOS Humanity: Petra Krischok: press@sos-humanity.org, +49 (0) 176 552 506 54
MSF: Mohamad Cheblak: mediterranean-fcc@oca.msf.org, +31 6 23895332
EMERGENCY: Claudia Agrestino: claudia.agrestino@emergency.it, +39 3346186239