Anti-immigration mood weighs on EU politicians

Seven months ago, the British government prevailed on its EU partners to abandon an Italian search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean, saying it acted as a "pull factor" for thousands of people considering the dangerous journey from Libya to Italy.

Now - after 1,000 deaths in the Mediterranean in the space of a week - that opposition to the Mare Nostrum operation has become a source of awkwardness for David Cameron, the UK prime minister, in the final straits of a tight election campaign.

Mr Cameron has battled criticism from across the political spectrum, with his Labour opponent, Ed Miliband, accusing him of "leaving people to die" in the Mediterranean.

Heading into an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday, where EU leaders will try to find a solution to the migration crisis - or at least a way to mitigate it - the British premier is hardly alone.

A contingent of mostly northern countries - including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria - all opposed a proposal for the EU to take over Mare Nostrum. "There was serious pressure [on Italy] from the bigger countries," said one diplomat familiar with the discussions.

Like Mr Cameron, their leaders will now struggle to address an increasingly desperate humanitarian crisis on the bloc's southern border while still placating electorates increasingly keen on limiting immigration.

"I hope there won't be just talk this time," Enrico Letta, who was Italy's prime minister when Mare Nostrum began, told the Financial Times.

Ahead of Thursday's hastily convened summit, Mr Cameron has begun to pivot from the UK's stubborn opposition to an EU-backed search and rescue operation, suggesting during a TV interview that Britain should "do more".

"That will involve more search and rescue and there is a contribution I'm sure we can make to that," said the prime minister.

Previously, British diplomats had been wary of such missions because of their larger reluctance to transfer power from national governments to Brussels.

After its phasing out, Mare Nostrum was eventually succeeded by a smaller, EU-backed operation named Triton, which does not have a mandate to conduct search and rescue.

Diplomats expect an agreement to double resources for Triton, which they hope will result in fewer deaths, even without a search and rescue mandate.

A proposal to disable the smuggling networks via military means also appears popular - despite concerns about the feasibility of any operation, as well as its legality.

But the political sensitivity of immigration issues across Europe means other proposals have proven difficult to agree.

This scheme is aimed at addressing one of the EU's longstanding migration irritations: the huge discrepancies in the number of asylum seekers each country receives.

A German-backed pilot programme to resettle about 5,000 refugees more equitably across Europe has been resisted by France as well as the UK, diplomats said. One noted that even if only a handful were sent to France, the far-right populist National Front could seize on this to score political points.

In 2014, Germany received 202,645 asylum applications, compared with just 8,020 in its neighbour Poland. In the same year, Sweden received 81,180 while its nordic neighbours Finland got 3,620.

During a meeting of ambassadors on Wednesday, Berlin expressed its frustration that despite frequent calls for Germany to show "solidarity" with its peers on fiscal matters, other capitals are less keen to share the burden of asylum seekers. "They did not pull their punches," said one person at the meeting.

An additional complication for the UK negotiators is that while Mr Cameron is eager to show the electorate that he is responding sensitively to the humanitarian catastrophe, Theresa May, the Conservative home secretary, is apparently not keen to back down.

Ms May, who was present at the EU meeting where the decision was taken to end Mare Nostrum, has consistently argued the focus should be on tackling the traffickers, without any mention of expanding rescue efforts.

The Home Office confirmed on Wednesday that since the Mare Nostrum operation was launched in October 2013, there had been an "increase in illegal immigration" across the Mediterranean.

Other longstanding complaints are also coming to the fore. A demand that member states "ensure fingerprinting of all migrants" was seen as a rebuke of gateway countries such as Italy and Greece, which have been accused of refusing to process migrants properly, enabling them to claim asylum in other member states.

The harrowing scenes from the Mediterranean have pushed migration - and the EU's flawed policies - to the top of the agenda. But they may not have brought a long-term solution any nearer. "This stuff is not going to be solved by Monday," said one diplomat.

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