EU leadership on Wednesday (23 November) rehashed decade-old statements on the importance of saving lives in the Mediterranean Sea.
"Saving life is always our first responsibility," EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, told MEPs in Strasbourg.
Margaritis Schinas, the vice-president of the European Commission, and Mikuláš Ben, Czech minister for European Affairs, made similar assertions.
But those statements appear increasingly hollow.
In 2013, EU summit conclu...
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Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.