An op-ed from Lucas Rasche to the Der Tagesspiegel
„The weeks-long impasse over the Sea-Watch 3 showed once again that decisions on how to handle migrants rescued in the Mediterranean can no longer be made on a ship-to-ship basis. The obstructive stance adopted by some Member States means that an ‘Alliance of the Willing’ is currently the only way to preserve the EU’s ability to act“, explains Lucas Rasche, Policy Fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute, in an article in the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. In view of the situation in the Mediterranean, an alliance of willing member states is urgently needed in parallel with long-term efforts to reform the Common European Asylum System. Lucas Rasche thus perceives the „stable mechanism“ for sea rescues, recently agreed by eight EU member states, as a necessary step and explains how this could look like in practice.