European Council President Donald Turk is visiting Athens today to talk about the Refugee Crisis. He met with Prime Minister Alexisi Tsipras and both men agreed that
Unilateral actions by European Union member states to deal with the migrant crisis troubling the bloc is hurting solidarity and must stop.
“We will not allow Greece to be turned into a warehouse of souls! We will accept permanently only so many migrants [a rate] corresponding to our population in the Europe of 28,” Tsipras said during a joint press conference with Tusk and stressed that “Greece already assumed a disproportional weight in the refugee crisis.”
Criticizing a “weak Europe” that cannot solve the problem, Tsipras said that “We ask that unilateral actions stop in Europe. Greece will demand that all countries respect the European treaty and that there will be sanctions for those that do not.”
“We will make every effort to apply the Schenghen treaty and the Geneva convention. We will not push back people in the sea, risking the lives of children.”
EUCO President Donald Tusk sent first of all a message to the millions refugees and migrants awaiting in Turkey to cross over to Europe.
“Here from Athens, I want to appeal to all potential illegal economic migrants wherever you are from: Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for nothing. Greece or any other European country will no longer be a transit country. The Schengen rules will enter into force again.”
Doland Tusk who is visiting Istanbul tomorrow to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be stressing in Greece and Turkey that the goal was to eliminate entirely the transit of migrants from Turkey to Greece and that Europeans believed Turkey should be able to bring the numbers down to the “low triple digits” very soon.
Before the meeting with Tsipras, Donald Tusk sent a strong ‘solidarity message to Greece. He tweeted this morning:
“Excluding Greece from Schengen is neither an end, nor a means. Greece will remain part of Schengen, euro area and EU.”
However, a day earlier, Donald Tusk defended the use of barbed-wire fences against migrants and the Schengen-collape, saying that securing the Schengen area’s outer borders was a “pre-condition” to solving the refugee crisis.
“I’m afraid that sometimes you need tougher measures if you, we want really to apply Schengen. Sorry but this is the reality,” Tusk said during his visit to Slovenia.
Tusk full remarks in Athens here.
other sources: reuters, state ERT TV, newsit.gr
So now it is Germany “not doing proper border controls”:
A German coast guard captain in an interview about what they are doing in Samos: “We do border control, we saved some 17 people from drowning”
Please Austria and Slovakia protest in Berlin against sea rescue, we all know you don’t have the balls to do so.
The Germans are bound by the same law of the sea as the Greeks. It is ignorant politicians in Austria and Slovakia, whose knowledge of the sea consists of sunbathing on the beach, who are determined to make Greeks break all the clear existing laws concerning maritime border controls.
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In fact, in the law of the sea the obligation to rescue is the most important rule there is. Any captain breaking it could never work again, and would be charged with homicide.
Guest (Xenos), Sorry but I feel that I must correct you on your last statement “in the law of the sea the obligation to rescue is the most important rule there is. Any captain breaking it could never work again, and would be charged with homicide”.
UNCLOS Article 98 States ” Duty to render assistance
1. Every State shall require the master of a ship flying its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious danger to the ship, the crew or the passengers:
(a) to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of
being lost;
(b) to proceed with all possible speed to the rescue of persons in
distress, if informed of their need of assistance, in so far as such
action may reasonably be expected of him;
(c) after a collision, to render assistance to the other ship, its crew and its passengers and, where possible, to inform the other ship
of the name of his own ship, its port of registry and the nearest
port at which it will call.
2. Every coastal State shall promote the establishment, operation and
maintenance of an adequate and effective search and rescue service regarding safety on and over the sea and, where circumstances so require, by way of mutual regional arrangements cooperate with neighbouring States for this purpose.
Therefore the Master has the right to refuse to pick up distressed persons if, he is of the opinion that by doing so he may risk the safety of vessel, crew or passengers. Your interpretation is wrong and the Master of the34 vessel would most certainly not be charged with homicide if he can prove that his decision was in fact correct and keeping in line with UNCLOS Article 98.
My understanding is that it would be very difficult indeed to prove such a case of risk, and despite the legal exemption you cite, no captain would ever refuse to undertake a rescue unless it was absolutely clear that he would endanger his ship.
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The proof of the pudding is in the eating. How many ships’ captains refused to engage in rescue and got away with it? I know of none, but I suppose there may be some. Notwithstanding this, I assert that it is a primary duty of ships’ captains to engage in rescue of anyone at sea: this is called self-preservation, and is a different set of rules from the land. The sea is dangerous and the law recognises that.
Guest(xenos)”In fact, in the law of the sea the obligation to rescue is the most important rule there is. Any captain breaking it could never work again, and would be charged with homicide.” Wrong ! Go and read UNCLOS Article 98 properly. “Duty to render assistance
1. Every State shall require the master of a ship flying its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious danger to the ship, the crew or the passengers”. This means the Master has the final say who is rescued.
You are wrong. The fact that there is a derogation clause is not important, unless the derogation condtions apply. Full stop.
If it’s not important why then is it there ? We had the same situations with Masters of vessel refusing to pick up wounded (non armed) pirates in the Indian ocean. This derogation clause is in fact extremely important and is therefore a re-inforcement of the masters ultimate authority over his vessel at sea.
Refusing to rescue criminals is not the same as refusing to rescue civilian refugees in the Aegean. Even so, there should have been prosecutions and if there were not, then this is an attack on the basi principles of the Law of the Sea.
However, I do agree that the trend in the last 20 years or so has been to break all laws and regulations, and try to get away with it. This is the anarchy of the modern world, and will doubtless shortly lead to another world war.
As for the Master’s authority over his ship: I don’t give a fuck. I am more concerned with legal responsibilies, and not allowing assholes to do as they like. Humanity is what matters.
“As for the Master’s authority over his ship: I don’t give a fuck. I am more concerned with legal responsibilies, and not allowing assholes to do as they like. Humanity is what matters.” With this very statement you are condoning the breaking of the UNCLOS. In which case I don’t really “give a fuck” about your opinion. UNCLOS is a legal responsibility it is the law of the seas and as such should not broken. Good day!
You seen to have problems with understanding law and also plain English. I told you that if there is an exceptional derogation, then it is an exceptional derogation. It would be stupid to deny a captain his right to make decisions concerning the safety of his vessel.
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However, you asserted (I know nothing of the story) that ships refused to pick up pirates for no reason other than the captains didn’t want to. You choose to assert the primacy of the captain over international legal obligations. As far as I am concerned, that is a pile of horseshit.
No Sir it is you that has problem with understanding
law and UNCLOS is very clear in this matter.
It is not merely the secuirity of the vessel that counts but also the crew and passengers of his vessel.
The master of the vesasel has every right to take
the decision not to pick up and that is an
International legal right which is enshrined in UNCLOS.
I suggest that you learn more about UNCLOS and the law of the seas as it is certainly not as cut and dried as you would like
it to be. So it would appear that it is you, Sir that is in fact talking “”horseshit”.
It is clear that your personal or professional interest is invovled in this argument. I am merely stating, as an observer, what are normal principles of law. If people want to interpret law differently, because it is in their interests so to do, then they will. Until such matters go before a competent court, their challenges to the law will be effetive. That is exactly what happens with all international law — that governments don’t feel like obeying it, when it suits them. It’s a problem.
I guess “pirates” are not the ships of the death-machine called world trade that are crossing the Indian ocean without any allowance of the people who live there but the kids they put in jail thousands of miles away from home.
As the president of one of the largest maritime security trade organisations, I am pointing out to all members of KTG that have shown an interest in this post that the International Maritime Law is not as cut and dried as some of you would appear to think it is. That is all and using such statements as “Refusing to rescue criminals is not the same as refusing to rescue civilian refugees in the Aegean” is also not correct. Pirates that have been shot and wouded at sea have the same rights of rescue as civilian refugee’s but it is a fact of International Maritime law that the Master is not legally oblidged to pick up anyone if s/he is of the opinion that by doing so his vessel, crew and /or passengers would endanger the safety and security of the vessel. Please rememeber such laws as SOLAS that states for every person onboard a vessel there MUST be adequate life jackets and life boat space available. This fact alone would be enough to only report the vessel in distress to the coast guard or millitary and not stop to pick up the distressed persons. With that I think I must thank KTG for allowing us to use up so much space on the page and herewith close the discussion.
No law is cut and dried, least of all international law. That doesn’t alter the fact that there is a legal obligation to rescue souls at sea.
Thanks for your disorientation, given that this “thread” (of non-members, btw) started with pointing out that the “European” politicians and Goebbels-media since months is demanding Greece to “protect borders” instead of saving people from drowning.
Thanks to this anti-Greek hunt nobody in “Europe” knows that more than 100.000 people got saved out of the waters by Greek coast-guards and – this makes it even more crazy as first it all started with demanding “joint patrols” of Turkish and Greek coastguards – in more than 2000 cases in cooperation with Turkey – also blatantly ignoring the fact that in the Aegean the coastguard is no police but military force; also the number of souls Turkey saved gets not mentioned (53.000 until Sept 2015) and with good luck one can hear of 10.000 saved by fishers, volunteers and NGOs but if mostly only to denounce Greece and/or Turkey for “doing nothing”. This shit all started with Frontex making circles around dinghies to create waves and punching holes into rubber boats or putting “rescued” on lone rocks in the sea and it gots reasons that now it’s much more difficult to close eyes…!
Any way it’s kinda funny to know that while most babies in the kindergarten wanna be pirates at the same times kids are in European prisons as so called “pirates” and I’ve never heard of any organisations like yours that ever cared about the rolling over or ignoring stressed refugees boats by NATO-ships in Libya or tankers and cruise ships as these seem to be allowed to mass-murder because “too big” (too expensive) to stop.
Also no media or organization reports that since last summer in six months over a thousand refugees drowned, got murdered by EU-policies refusing to open embassies for registration in Syria aso, instead they all start counting bodies again with 1st of January.
And of course, David is perfectly correct when he points out that the smugglers of refugees across the Aegean and Mediterranean are always careful to conform to SOLAS — with life jackets and lifeboats specially tailored for the passengers.
“Specially tailored?”, you ask. Yes, life jackets that don’t float and lifeboats that don’t exist.
Hot air, as usual from that guy, who is desperate to keep his face. Fact is: Border ist closed and will remain so for years (other Greek officials have already confirmed it), that the refugees will stay for years. Also it has already been announced, that Greece will not block any decision at the EU summit on monday, as Tsipras has also said he would. All bull….
who announced “GR will not block”?
Media changed from the lie “veto all decisions” to the original “possibly deciding veto all decisions regarding refugee-crisis”
from the very beginning it was about: veto decisions on refugee crisis
Malakas Tusk should keep his big mouth shut. The migrants arriving are predominantly refugees — not illegal migrants. It is frankly disgusting to see how right wing and defiant of law are European politicians. It is a legal right to seek asylum in Europe according to the EU Treaties, secondary legislation and the UN 1951 convention. What uneducated assholes think should not matter.
Actually Donald Tusk is speaking out of two sides of his mouth. From one side it is “No, no, no!” to refugees. From the other the message is “Schengen is open”.
If I were a refugee I know which I’d pay attention to.
At the same time there is the “small detail” of STILL not paying the paltry 3 billion to Turkey after 6 months. 3 billion from the EU is peanuts…if Europe was serious it would have paid 3 billion every month.
Since he addressed his comments to “illegal migrants” — which excludes all refugees who have the right to cross borders without authorisation — then he is speaking to about 15% of the total people coming across to Greece. Even if every single person without claim to protection would be deterred from coming, it would make very little difference to the total number arriving. 15% fewer, to be exact.