The EU’s asylum policy is to blame for the tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean

As the leading article in The Spectator this week pointed out, thousands of people are fleeing war and anarchy in Africa and setting sail across the Mediterranean bound for Europe. The latest tragedy comes today, after a boat carrying between 500 and 700 migrants from Libya capsized. So far, only 28 people have been rescued.

Coaxed by traffickers who demand huge sums, refugees have been piling into rickety boats which often disintegrate en route. Aid groups, human rights activists, the pope and the EU itself all say the EU-funded rescue operation Triton is inadequate. Well, they’re right in a way, but they’re also missing the point. The real culprit isn’t Triton but the EU’s tragic asylum and immigration policy. Though it is designed to save people, it instead lures them to their death.

Before the establishment of Triton, Italy, which has the closest external border to Africa, buckled under the strain of its much-lauded rescue mission Mare Nostrum. Italians knew they were saving lives, but they also knew they were contributing to a vicious circle: the more people they helped, the more would come and the greater the strain placed on their struggling country.

The Dublin Regulation, central to the EU’s asylum and migration policy, is at the heart of this catastrophe, stipulating that the country of first arrival must take responsibility for the asylum claim.