At the Greens party conference next weekend, a group around MEP Erik Marquardt wants to file an urgent petition calling for the states to send ships to the Mediterranean for rescue purposes.
"The Mediterranean is a grave for thousands of people seeking protection," the claimants write. A European sea rescue is far away. "The agreement of Malta, in which Italy, Malta, France and Germany agreed on a quick solution of refugees, was apparently only a press conference and not a solution," it said in the grounds.
Federal states may, according to the report, send their own ships
You have commissioned a legal opinion, which comes to the conclusion that the states may send their own ships:
- "The countries have a competence to send ships to the Mediterranean," it says in the report, which is available to the SPIEGEL.
- In many parts of the Mediterranean in the rescue, no sovereign, diplomatic contact with other states is required, for which the federal government would be responsible, it says in the report.
- Even the possible involvement of other states in rescue coordination does not reach the threshold of "maintaining relations" as purely operational, non-legal cooperation in individual cases.
- Other things apply to the sea rescue in the Mediterranean when it concerns the internal waters and the territorial sea of Mediterranean coastal states. "A gateway would have to agree there by the respective coastal state by virtue of his sovereignty," it says in the report. That was a legally binding declaration of intent, which in turn had to negotiate the federal government.
In their application, the Greens are writing about Marquardt, saying they want the lack of state-owned maritime rescue to be filled by all political levels. "If there is no European sea rescue, if the German Federal Government does not send rescue ships, then the federal states must send ships".
This is a question of political will. It is time to become active yourself. "That's why we demand that federal states send sea rescue vessels to the Mediterranean or support maritime rescue organizations."
Applicant Marquardt says he expects the European Commission and the Member States to launch a European maritime rescue program: "However, neither in reception nor in rescue can we wait for member states or the EU Commission to finally find solutions. "
"Hopefully the federal party joins this demand"
That's why the role of the federal states is crucial. It was good and important that several states had agreed to take rescue from distress.
"But without rescue, there are no rescued people who can still be distributed," he says. That's why they demanded that states participate in the rescue. "Federal states are allowed to send ships or participate in a different form of rescue, which we have checked legally, and hopefully the federal party will join this demand over the weekend," he says.
How the countries co-governed by Greens respond to the request is open. The Baden-Württemberg state government of Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) did not want to comment on a request from the SPIEGEL so far.
The co-governed city-states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen had declared in the past that their cities remained "safe havens" for refugees. Bettina Jarasch, Spokeswoman for Integration and Escape of the Greens in the Berlin House of Representatives, told the SPIEGEL that they had to explore all possibilities, so that people on the run would reach safe havens and no one would drown in the Mediterranean.
"That means first and foremost that federal states take in sea rescuers," said Jarasch. "The rescue of the sea itself must ultimately be organized by the EU - but we are examining what contribution the federal states can make here as well".