New horizons or old barriers? The 2023 EU anti-smuggling directive proposal and human mobility in the Mediterranean

ABSTRACT

In the context of the global push to counter migrant smuggling, in November 2023 the European Commission presented a new anti-smuggling directive proposal, replacing the 2002 Facilitators’ Package. In this article, we critically analyse two key elements of the new directive proposal and reflect on their implications on human mobility in the Central Mediterranean. First, we explore the proposal’s limited scope, which frames the facilitation of movement primarily as a criminal offence performed by migrant smuggling networks alone. Second, we assess the introduction of the financial or material benefit as a constitutive element of the crime of smuggling. We then evaluate these components in light of the recent developments in the criminalization of sea rescue operations and people on the move along the Central Mediterranean route. Finally, we raise concerns over the directive’s potential impact on human mobility within the Euro-Mediterranean region. While it may reduce the likelihood of sea rescue efforts from being labelled as smuggling, the directive will allow for the continued prosecution of people on the move who pilot boats for no financial benefit, in an effort to save their lives and those of others.

Keywords:

• Migrant smuggling
• European Commission
• European Union
• Facilitation Directive
• Facilitators’ Package

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the reviewers and to the journal editors for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An earlier version was published as: Alagna, F. & Sanchez, G. The persisting challenges of the new European Commission’s smuggling directive proposal. Border Criminologies. 8 January 2024. https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-criminologies-blog/blog-post/2024/01/persisting-challenges-new-european-commissions.

2. In spite of the temporal proximity and of a similar political approach to undocumented migration, this proposal is not formally related to the New Pact on Migration and Asylum approved by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in 2024.

3. Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

4. The same occurred with the failed reform of the Facilitators Package following a Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme in 2017 and the 2020 New Pact on Migration and Asylum.

5. Commission Guidance on the implementation of EU rules on definition and prevention of the facilitation of unauthorized entry, transit and residence (2020/C 323/01).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.