The executive director of European border agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, announced at a press conference in Brussels that its Mediterranean security operation Triton will have a new operational plan within the next two months.
The press conference was held to discuss the current situation regarding European sea borders and migrant influxes to Europe. Italy requested the operational plan revision, which began in July and was followed by two bilateral technical meetings in August and September. Leggeri said the agency is planning to "have the new plan in the next two months".
Arrivals down by 13% in 2017 compared to 2016
During the conference, Leggeri released figures on the current migrant arrival situation in Europe. Regarding the route from Libya to Italy, "the level remains high compared to that towards Greece and Spain, but there has been an important change" because "in July arrivals went down by more than 50% and in August they went down by half again compared to the previous month". Leggeri said that between January and August 2017 "100,000 people have arrived, but there's a 13% decrease over the same period from January to August of the previous year".
Greek route stable, Spanish route up
Frontex said the route for arrivals to Greece is "stable despite some peaks of 300 arrivals a day in August" while "the Morocco route to Spain is increasing" with "14,000 arrivals, which is 2.5 times higher than the same period in 2016". Leggeri said "many come from Morocco" and the western Maghreb, and Frontex "has no indications of a movement" of the route towards Morocco, due to stricter controls around Libya. Regarding returns organised by Frontex, Leggeri said "despite the difficulties, flights have doubled" and so far in 2017 there have already been 220 flights with more than 10,000 people compared to 232 flights (about 12,000 people) in all of 2016.
(Picture shows migrant being rescued by Libyan Coast Guard off the the coast of Zawiya. Photo credit ZuHair Abusrewil/ANSA)