Nicos Anastasiades

Anastasiades in his capacity as the head of state of Cyprus assumingly participated in all European Council meeting from 02/2013 onwards. As such he rejected the Europeanization of MN. Further, Anastasiades through the European Council conclusions in March 2015 advocated for “strengthening Triton (See European Council Report, 2014 - Mare Nostrum).

Functional responsibility for the decisions of the European Council from 02/2013 until present.

This includes:

• the Council's decision in the summer of 2014 not to "europeanize" Mare Nostrum and its tacit agreement with the establishment of Triton (See: European Council report: 2014: Mare Nostrum).

• the Council conclusions in March 2015, which called for “strengthening Triton" (See European Council Report, 2015 – Operation Triton).

• the Council conclusions in April 2015, which increased funds for Operations Triton and Poseidon without meaningfully expanding the operation’s search and rescue activities (See European Council Report, 2015 – Operation Triton).

Functional responsibility for the decisions of the European Council from 02/2013 until present.

This includes:

• the Council conclusions in April 2015, which aksed the Commission to lay the groundwork for an anti-smuggling operation, which would become Operation Sophia (See European Council Report, 2015 – Operation Triton).

Anastasiades as part of the European Council made all efforts to return exiles to Libya without having to involve the EU into the publicly visible act of shipping them back themselves (See European Council Report, 2018).

Functional responsibility for the repeated efforts of the European Council from 02/2013 until present to rhetorically marginalize refugees.

This includes:

• efforts to frame the refugee crisis not as a humanitarian issue but as a matter of border control. E.g., the December 2015 Council conclusions stressed the need to “regain control over the external borders. (See European Council Report, 2015 - Valletta Summit). Likewise, in February 2016, the Council emphasized its dissatisfaction with the “slow” pace of regaining control of external borders and highlighted the “necessity” to act swiftly on limiting migration. (See European Council Report, 2016). In addition, the Bratislava Declaration of September 2016 reiterated the need to “ensure full control of external borders” (See European Council Report, 2016)

• efforts to frame the refugee crisis as a matter of "illegal migration," a phrase used repeatedly, e.g. in the Council conclusions of October 2017 and June 2018 (See European Council Report: 2017: The Libyan Coastguards; European Council Report: 2018)

Besides preventing NGOs to conduct search and rescue and to fill the gap left by the end of Mare Nostrum, Anastasiades through the European Council  advocated for “migrants” to be intercepted Libyans even if European rescue NGOs were in close distance to exiles in distress. (See European Council Report, 2018).

Anastasiades was present at a conference in Malta that was convened a day after the Malta Declaration was adopted (2017) where the causal link between cooperation with Libyan authorities and increasing death tolls in the Med Sea was openly drawn. Futher, Anastasiades with other participants called for additional measures focused on Libya such as to train, equip and support the Libyan national coast guard. (See European Council Report, 2017 – Lybian Coast Guard).

Functional responsibility for the decisions of the European Council from 02/2013 until present:

This includes:

• November 2015 Action Plan decided at the Valletta Summit, which launched the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa to assist with “migration management projects" and thus created a financial tool for the future training of the LYCG (See European Council Report, 2015 - Valletta Summit).

• the June 2016 Council conclusions, which expressed its approval of Operation Sophia's involvement in “training the Libyan coastguard. (See European Council Report, 2016)

• the December 2016 Council conclusions, which emphasized the goal of supporting the Libyan coastguard through Operation Sophia (See European Council Report, 2016) - the 2017 Malta conference, at which Council members called for EU to "train, equip and support the Libyan national coast guard" (See European Council Report: 2017: The Libyan Coastguards)

• the June 2018 conclusions, which called on “all vessels... not [to] obstruct operations of the Libyan coastguard.” (See European Council Report: 2018)

Functional responsibility for the decisions of the European Council from 02/2013 until present:

This includes:

• November 2015 Action Plan decided at the Valletta Summit, which laid the groundwork for sharing maritime surveillance data with Libya. (See European Council Report, 2015 – Valletta Summit)

Anastasiades called with other heads of states for the implementation of complementary EU training programmes and the creation if sustainable funding through among other things the Seahorse Mediterranean Network Cooperate. (See European Council Report, 2017 – The Libyan coastguards)