Bricolage, Subsidiarity and Coalitions of the Willing: Operational realities, political fictions and fault-lines in Europes response to the humanitarian crisis of Mediterranean Sea migration.

This paper critically questions assumptions that the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the Mediterranean will necessarily create a strong and common EU approach to the problem. In any event should the response be primarily centralised or decentralised? The EUs recent Maritime Security Strategy (MSS, 2014) articulates the need for a distinctive EU approach to maritime security, seen most forcefully as regards Operation Atalanta off Somalia. Notwithstanding recent agreements on greater prioritisation and funding, the EU has been slow to respond credibly to the Mediterranean crisis, even though it has been evolving for years. It is now being used to justify greater EU commonality on grounds of solidarity. Yet does solidarity require policy centralisation at the EU level? The core operational maritime capabilities and the main actors dealing with the crisis remain distinctively national: Navies, Coastguards, Civil Protection Corps and even national charitable associations. By lavishing so much attention and hope at the EU level, we risk missing the salience of the national level. Rather than indulge a centralising reflex on solidarity grounds, this paper argues the merits for a decentralised approach that would stress enhancing national capacities.