Europe is turning its back on migrants. Let us look at the facts and figures. So far, Brussels and its member states have failed to take the side, in any meaningful way, of this Babel of desperate people who have often crossed deserts, prisons, torture and violence, and who agree to board vessels for an extremely dangerous crossing for the sole purpose of keeping hope alive.

The standoff between Malta and Italy over the Aquarius

The dramatic buck-passing witnessed around the Aquarius affair is the direct consequence of this, but it is merely the tip of the iceberg. When the SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières NGO vessel, carrying hundreds of migrants snatched from certain death, was blocked by the Italian authorities, it was 35 nautical miles from the Italian coast and 27 from that of Malta. Essentially equivalent distances.

Both countries could have declared one of their ports "safe" for the docking and disembarkation of children, women and men. But neither took a step forward. It was Spain that resolved the dispute, with its socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez announcing: "We will take them in."

French president Macron: "Italy cynical and irresponsible"

In the meantime, statements arrived from French president Emmanuel Macron, who spoke of "cynicism" and "irresponsibility" on the part of the Italian government. And yet it was in France itself that, in recent weeks, the news of migrants' bodies resurfacing in the mountains between Piedmont and Provence caused outrage and anguish. Bodies of people who had been stranded in Ventimiglia for some time and who attempted the crossing: after that of the Mediterranean, that of the Alps. Like a modern Odyssey.

That same France has also taken to court those who, in mountain villages, extended a hand to migrants by offering them shelter from the winter cold. And, in Calais, it built a wall along the ring road, with the aim of preventing them from hiding in lorries bound for the United Kingdom.

The European countries that have not honoured their commitments on migrants

On Wednesday morning, the Aquarius was still just off Agrigento, en route to the Iberian Peninsula. The affair has at least had the merit of underlining once again that only with the goodwill of all can the issue be resolved. Goodwill that, so far, has often not been forthcoming. According to the decisions of the European Council of September 2015, 120,000 asylum seekers present in Italy and Greece, and deemed to be "in clear need of international protection", were supposed to be "relocated" to other EU countries, each of which had agreed to take in a quota.

Yet European Commission data indicate that the procedure has so far been carried out in only 33,800 cases. This is because only two nations, Ireland and Malta, have done more than the little they had promised: 900 migrants received against the 600 announced in the first case, 168 against 131 in the second. While two nations in particular, Germany and France, are still far from honouring their commitments. Angela Merkel's government has in fact taken in only 10,300 asylum seekers, against the 27,500 promised; Macron's country fewer than 5,000 out of 20,000.

In any case, this is only part of the problem, since many of those who arrive are not asylum seekers. Indeed, according to the International Organization for Migration, in 2017 alone, more than 171,000 people landed in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain. There will therefore be hundreds of ships like the Aquarius, full of migrants, in the coming summer months. As always. Because "people fleeing a house on fire throw themselves into the void. They know they are going to be dashed to pieces, but they won't let themselves burn," writer Erri De Luca had summed up with great effectiveness. "Nobody will stop the desperate of history," Father Alex Zanotelli echoed him.

Turning Europe into a "fortress", in other words, is essentially useless. The facts prove it. What is to be done, then? Some years ago, a group of French researchers, led by Catherine Wihtol de Wenden of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (Cnrs), proposed a path diametrically opposed to the one Europe has chosen so far. It was the Mobglob project (global mobility and migration governance), whose conclusions were summarised to the newspaper Le Monde by François Gémenne (of the Centre d'Études et de Recherches Internationales in Paris): "We found that borders around the world have never been so closed. And yet there have never been so many migrants. Something doesn't add up…"

"Bans are good for nothing, except increasing the risks"

"Our studies," he added, "show that the opening or closing of borders neither creates nor prevents flows. A closed border does not stop a migrant from paying 5,000 dollars and risking their life. In Ceuta and Melilla (on the northern coast of Morocco, ed.), there are migrants who try five, ten, a hundred times to cross. Bans are good for nothing, except increasing the risks."

On the contrary, freedom of movement for people (following the example of what already happens for goods and capital…) would benefit migrants as well as the states that would receive them. "We analysed the possible consequences of a liberalisation of crossings," Gémenne had explained, "in five geographical areas. We can state that no increase in flows would occur. That is why opening borders would be the solution." It is only a proposal, of course. But given that current policy is not working — in 2017 alone, more than 3,100 people died in the Mediterranean — perhaps it is worth opening at least a debate.