Cecilia Malmström

She was present at an informal meeting of the 6 largest EU States which took place in June 2014. Malmström stated after the EU Minister of Interiors and Minister of Justice Informal Meeting on July 9, 2014 in Milan that she was discussing with Mr. Alfano, the Italian Interior Minister, a “scaled-down” version of MN, given the limits of means to support the operation. She argued on different instance that the termination of MN  was an italian decision and that the Commission had no power over it. Then she gave a press conference in August 2014 where she stateed that JO Triton will not replace MN but substitute it. On 4 September 2014, she announced and presented Triton. If we do not know her exact level of decision-making at this stage, we know that she had knowledge of the operation plans of Triton. She was the one to "sell" the operation to the general public. (See, The Commission, B Implication in relevant policies, I End of MN and launch of Triton).                                                                 

On 3 September 2014 Malmström stated that “we cannot replace Mare Nostrum [...] The mandate of Frontex is a border guard agency. Now there will be still people coming in the Mediterranean and there will be more people coming and this is something we don’t have the solution for."

In a press release on 4 July 2017 by the Commission it was stated "that Italy should draft, in consultation with the Commission and on the basis of a dialogue with the NGOs, a Code of Conduct for NGOs involved in SAR activities". This statement would have been discussed if not agreed within the Commission, therefore functional responsibility arise (See, Commission report, Criminalization of NGOs)

Within the Seahorse Med framework, the Commission planned to provide 285 million euros for the expansion of border surveillance to Libya; The Commission had already funded the establishement of several "operational control centers" with 42.2 million euros. Each Commissioner at that time (2017) must have approved those decision (The Commission, Seahorse Med).

In June 2017 the Commission issued an "Action plan on measures to support Italy" in which it encouraged the EUTF to adopt "the project on sea and land border management in Libya prepared by Italy jointly with the Commission, for an amount of 46 million euros"; since each Commissioner must agree on the Commission's decisions, he encompass a functional responsibility (See, Commission, European Agenda on Migration)