The hour of Europe on the Mediterranean crisis

When EU heads of government meet in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean they need to agree a convincing strategy to confront what is now one of the most serious challenges facing the bloc.

The fact that Europe's leaders have convened this emergency summit is welcome recognition of the human tragedy unfolding on their southern border. But after the drowning of about 1,600 people in the Mediterranean this year, Thursday's meeting is no time for political gestures and half measures. EU leaders need to unveil a robust and wide-ranging plan that stops people drowning on Europe's southern border while taking action to bust the people-smuggling networks operating in lawless Libya.

As the migrant flows across the Mediterranean surge to unprecedented levels, there are conflicting views on how to respond. The complaint of human rights groups is that the EU last year scaled back Italy's search-and-rescue operation, replacing it with a more limited border control mission. They demand that Thursday's summit sees the deployment of an extensive naval flotilla with a clear remit to save lives.

Some government leaders fear, however, that restoring search-and-rescue will provide an open-ended invitation to migrants to make the hazardous sea crossing, encouraging refugee flows that Europe cannot accommodate. They are therefore focusing on the need for the EU to take military action against the smugglers, destroying boats on the Libyan beach before they take on their human cargoes.

A more muscular response to the criminal trafficking business would certainly be welcome. The EU has scored an important foreign policy success in recent years with Operation Atalanta, a naval campaign to eliminate piracy off the Horn of Africa. By tracking the movement of Somali pirates, arresting them and seizing their boats, the EU helped to contain what had become a threat to international shipping.

But EU leaders should beware of regarding such a military mission as the sole solution or even one that will secure quick results. It would require a mandate from the Libyan authorities or the UN - something that would not be assured. Western intelligence on Libyan smuggling networks is thin. Above all, the desperation of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East to reach the European shore means the smuggling business is not one that will easily be destroyed.

So the EU can certainly try to act on this front but it needs to address other concerns, too. Europe's 28 member states must do more to share the burden of resettling refugees, especially from Syria, where Germany and Sweden have acted honourably and the British response has been woeful. The EU should step up efforts to reconcile the different factions in Libya, restoring stability to a country whose disarray has fuelled the migrant crisis. Above all, the EU needs to ensure that its naval mission in the Mediterranean is fully mandated for search-and-rescue and with resources to match. If the EU is to retain its moral authority as a global player it cannot compromise on the question of saving lives.

The flow of migrants seeking to reach Europe from Africa and the Middle East is not a phenomenon likely to last a few more summers only to disappear.

This is a long-term population flow that requires a profound response. At their summit on Thursday, Europe's leaders need to demonstrate a degree of political energy on migration that has thus far been painfully lacking. On a critical matter, this is once again "the hour of Europe".

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