A look at the EU's 10-point emergency migrant action plan

European Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the EU Council building in Luxembourg on Monday, April 20, 2015. An Italian coast guard ship headed toward Sicily Monday to look for survivors of a capsized ship in what could be the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant tragedy, as EU foreign ministers gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis. (AP Photo/Thierry Monasse) (The Associated Press)

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In this June 13, 2012, file photo, a Rohingya Muslim man who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape religious violence, cries as he pleads from a boat after he and others were intercepted by Bangladeshi border authorities in Taknaf, Bangladesh. Two recent shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea believed to have taken the lives of as many as 1,300 asylum seekers and migrants has highlighted the escalating flow of people fleeing persecution, war and economic difficulties in their homelands. (AP Photo/Anurup Titu, File) (The Associated Press)

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, left, and Greece's Deputy Foreign Minister Nikos Chountis stand for a moment of silence during a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the EU Council building in Luxembourg on Monday, April 20, 2015. An Italian coast guard ship headed toward Sicily Monday to look for survivors of a capsized ship in what could be the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant tragedy, as EU foreign ministers gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis. (AP Photo/Thierry Monasse) (The Associated Press)

BRUSSELS – Spurred into action by a massive loss of lives in the Mediterranean, the European Union's executive arm has proposed a 10-point action plan for dealing with the unprecedented migrant influx. Here's a look at each point of the plan, which will be fleshed out by EU leaders at a crisis summit Thursday, and how likely each is to help the situation:

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Action 1: Provide more money and assets for EU operations in the Mediterranean, such as the Triton border mission, which manages the bloc's borders and monitors migrant flows. Extend their operational area, allowing ships to work farther from European coastlines.

Reality check: The 28 EU member states continually pay lip-service to beefing up the Frontex border agency, of which Triton is a part. No country has announced it will provide more funds or assets, although the summit provides a high-profile occasion for such contributions.

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Action 2: Capture and destroy boats used by smugglers. To be done by a civil-military mission working closer to Libya than current efforts. The EU executive says Atalanta, the EU's anti-piracy operation off Somalia, is a good model.

Reality check: Atalanta is led by Britain, but with migration a big election issue there, a large British role would seem unlikely. There also might be legal obstacles to European navies destroying boats. Many pirate boats are stolen and could be owned by EU citizens.

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Action 3: Get EU police, legal, asylum and border agencies to help track down smugglers by stepping up cooperation and information-gathering.

Reality check: EU member states are notoriously reluctant to share information. The EU's data supervisor held up an exchange of intelligence between the police agency Europol and border agency Frontex for about four months over privacy concerns.

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Action 4: Deploy teams from the EU's asylum agency EASO in Italy and Greece to process asylum applications. This process should take around four months but can take many more. The plan is to reduce that to two months.

Reality check: Generally seen as a good thing.

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Action 5: Have EU member countries ensure the fingerprinting of all migrants.

Reality check: This is supposed to happen already. Italy has been accused of failing to do so in certain cases, allowing migrants to move further into northern Europe.

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Action 6: Consider options for emergency relocation that would ease pressure on countries like Italy, Greece and Malta.

Reality check: While paying lip-service to solidarity and burden-sharing, member states are reluctant to provide resources. No binding system exists to force countries to respect their pledges to share the burden.

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Action 7: Launch an EU-wide voluntary project on resettling people.

Reality check: This would not be binding. Some countries do not have even the minimum EU accommodation standards to host refugees. EU EPP lawmaker Monika Hohlmeier spoke Tuesday of one member state official who asked her whether his country could pay for asylum seekers to be housed in another EU nation "because their public wouldn't like the idea."

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Action 8: Establish a new return program for the rapid return of migrants refused residency in the EU. This would be coordinated from the main front-line states like Italy, Greece and Malta.

Reality check: In 2013, EU member states rejected the applications of 425,875 people and they were supposed to leave. In practice only 166,975 people, less than 40 percent, were sent back.

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Action 9: Engage with Libya's neighbors to stop the flow of people into the conflict-torn country, which lacks a strong central authority. A pilot project involving Niger is already in the pipeline. Contact has also been made with Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

Reality check: While logical as longer-term policy, this will not save lives in the Mediterranean in the short-term.

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Action 10: Deploy immigration officers to key countries — chiefly Niger, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Turkey — to gather intelligence on migration flows and strengthen the role of EU delegations in those countries.

Reality check: Outsourcing asylum screening abroad has been criticized by humanitarian groups. They see it as Europe failing in its obligations to deal with the flows of people heading to its shores.