Boat Refugees in the Mediterranean: Tackle the Root Causes or Build Fortress Europe?

'It is not immigration, which causes problems - it is how it is dealt with politically. It is also not Europe, which is getting attacked - however, the walls of a fortress, are being built at the moment.' Corinna Milborn, 'Gestürmte Festung Europa...' In this study about the boat people in the Mediterranean the emphasis lies on Italy and on the EU policy on refugees in the Mediterranean in cooperation with African states. Regarding the EU policy it deals particularly with the border security agency Frontex that has access to a rapidly growing budget coming from the EU funds. The advocates of the EU politics like to stress that their policies are in the best interest of the migrants themselves, their native countries and their destination countries, which means that a 'triple win situation' can be produced. However, refugee aid and other human rights organizations criticize harshly that refugees are criminalized and that their legitimate right are not guaranteed. The author depicts state networks on illegal migration and follows the question whether the EU has the wish to grant the refugees their rights.

Julian Traublinger was born in 1981 in Bad Reichenhall, Germany. In his childhood he already has been interested in politics, particularly human rights issues. At secondary school he founded a students' group at Amnesty International. He successfully finished his studies of geography in 2008. Alongside his studies at the university he was politically active in an ecological party as well as with the network of globalisation critics ATTAC. During a stay in Malta he got inspired to write about boat refugees. There he was able to visit a refugees' camp with a delegation of the Maltese Green Party. He also gained experiences in the fields of spatial planning as well as regional development and nature conservation.