The real objective of the measure is not to manage sea rescues, but to limit and hinder the presence of humanitarian ships and to arrive at a plan to abandon the Mediterranean for good and to criminalise sea rescue. These are the words used by search and rescue organisations to comment on the Senate's approval of the law amending Decree-Law 145/2024, also known as the 'flows decree'.
More sanctions - both administrative detentions and fines of up to 10,000 euros, including the possibility of confiscation - this time, and always in a discriminatory manner, against NGO aircraft that have been involved in monitoring missions that have contributed decisively to the rescue of boats in distress and have documented serious and systematic violations of human rights. These violations include failures to rescue, unjustified delays in intervention and the facilitation of forced refoulement as a result of violent interception. According to NGOs, this legislation aims to undermine the legal obligation to report the presence of boats in distress, and there are also fears that it seeks to turn these same aircraft into tools in the service of the Libyan Coast Guard's maritime interception system.
In addition, the sanctions for NGO SAR vessels provided for in the Piantedosi Decree are further strengthened. First of all, although the duration of the first administrative detention of the vessel can now vary between 10 and 20 days depending on the seriousness of the offence, a ban on navigation is still prescribed until the prefectoral order is issued. In effect, this means that the vessel will have to spend more days in inactivity, with no possibility of appeal. In addition, a repetition of the offence committed in the previous five years triggers the aggravation of the sanctions, not only if the repetition is committed by the same captain, but also by the same shipowner or ship operator'.
This is an exacerbation of the current situation: it has indeed happened on several occasions that NGO vessels have been stopped on the basis of false declarations by the Libyan coastguard, without even checking all the recordings of conversations and exchanges of e-mails and radio messages that the NGOs themselves have. Secondly, the extension of the repeat offence to the shipowner or ship operator makes the sanctions more severe, since NGO ships tend to have a captain who changes more often than the shipowner or ship operator. In addition, the decree shortens the time limits for appealing against detentions of NGO ships, which were set by the Piantedosi decree.
Once again," the undersigned NGOs conclude, "the aim seems to be to make life impossible for those who save lives and bear witness to the violations of international law that occur every day in the Central Mediterranean. Another harmful, propagandistic and inhumane law, as well as blatantly illegitimate. In fact, the government continues to try to circumvent international law through ordinary laws, decrees, regulations and administrative practices, trying to inflict the greatest possible damage in the short term on those crossing the sea and those they rescue. We expect an increase in the number of deaths at sea, but once again this decree will not stop the solidarity of those who, like us, are genuinely trying to do something to alleviate the suffering of others.
