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After all, the EU did a deal with Turkey last year in which Turkey agreed to take back migrants who had made the short dash across the Aegean in return for European countries agreeing to take an equal number of Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey.

Yet as many British tourists who head to the Mediterranean over the next few weeks will discover, the Turkey deal has not ended the problem.

On other routes the migration continues apace. In just four days 9,000 migrants have arrived in Italy.

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Refugees and migrants wait to be rescued in the early hours of the morning off Lampedusa, Italy

Besides that, a new migration route has been established between Morocco and Spain, which over the past week has seen 1,000 arrivals.

We have to shut down the traffickers

Tragically, as in Greece, bodies are beginning to wash up on Spanish beaches.

Across the Mediterranean as a whole 2,000 are estimated to have drowned this year. We cannot go on tolerating this human tragedy.

As in Greece we must find a humane way of stopping people boarding boats in the first place. Italy yesterday made a start by threatening to close its ports to non-Italian-registered, migrant-carrying ships.

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Many of these vessels are operated by charities which, while well-meaning, are thoroughly misguided.

Italys move is certainly a beginning, although Europe needs a co-ordinated approach to go further still and shut down these migration routes.

It goes without saying that we can and must continue to do whatever we can to search for these boats and to rescue their human cargos.

But once migrants have been saved from the unseaworthy vessels they have boarded in North African countries they should in almost all cases be returned to the countries from whence they set sail.

What we must stop doing, on the other hand, is providing a ferry service across the Mediterranean.

What happens at the moment is that migrants saved from sinking boats a few miles off the North African coast are then being brought the rest of the way to Europe in safety.

By providing this service we are encouraging a criminal racket which has caused a huge number of deaths.

There are some in Britain who romanticise the great migration across the Mediterranean, who see the migrants as heroes who, if allowed to, will become enterprising and patriotic citizens of Europe.

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In some cases this is no doubt true but it shouldnt detract from the fact that the migration is run by criminal gangs who care not one jot for their victims.

We will tackle these traffickers only by closing down their business. Instead we are colluding with them. There is another common fallacy that all those who attempt to make it to Europe are refugees.

Some arriving from Syria or the lawless parts of chaotic, post-Gaddafi Libya certainly do deserve that description.

Others may have started their journeys as refugees in places such as Somalia. But many others are more accurately described as economic migrants.

Some of those arriving in Spain in recent months are reported to have come from Senegal, which is one of the most stable African countries.

Of course many Senegalese could improve their lives and their health by migrating to European countries which offer a far better standard of living.

But that is no basis for claiming asylum, which is supposed to be for people who are genuinely fleeing in fear of their lives.

If we did recognise the right of people to settle wherever they liked, and to enjoy the full rights of citizenship, including access to welfare and healthcare, Europe would very quickly be overwhelmed. And while economic migrants were allowed to pursue a better life, genuine refugees would be forgotten.

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Aid workers help migrants up the shore after making the crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on November 16, 2015 in Sikaminias, Greece

Ferrying migrants across the Mediterranean might be helping some refugees lucky enough to survive journeys in traffickers boats but for too long Europe has been looking at the refugee problem from the wrong end of the telescope.

The debate has become fixated on people crossing the Mediterranean and indeed the English Channel when we should really be asking what more could we do to help refugees much closer to the source of the problem.

Throughout the Syrian crisis Britain has followed by far the most logical and humane approach of any European country.

We have contributed far more than any other to the running of refugee camps in countries bordering Syria, while at the same time erecting barriers to discourage migrant flows into Britain.

There is a lot more that Europe could be doing to help refugees. Disgracefully the UN Food Programme had to reduce its operations in Lebanon for want of donations from wealthy countries.

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We could certainly take more refugees from Syria but we should take them directly from camps in the Middle East.

That way we ensure we are really helping refugees, not economic migrants, and also discourage the people traffickers.

Last year in its deal with Turkey the EU finally caught up with the logic. It is high time it went further and closed down the lethal trade in migrants across the Mediterranean for good.

Originally posted here:
Europe's attempts to solve migrant crisis are failing, says ROSS CLARK - Express.co.uk