Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the remit is of the NATO operation in the Aegean Sea relating to the refugee crisis.

Mr David Lidington

I refer the Hon. Member to answers the Secretary of State for Defence, my right Hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr Fallon), gave to the House on 7 March (Official Record, Cols 23-37). The purpose of this NATO operation is to provide monitoring, surveillance, and reconnaissance (MSR) of the Aegean migration routes to better enable Turkish and Greek coastguards and Frontex (the EU’s border management agency) to intercept the migrant boats and disrupt the business model of illegal migration. It is worth noting that the formal mandate of NATO’s activity is neither interdiction nor search and rescue, but if UK vessels encounter migrants in distress at sea, they will be rescued in accordance with international obligations and arrangements made for them to be returned to land.