EU asylum reform receives backlash from human rights groups
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The interior ministers of 21 EU countries agreed to fundamentally reshape the union’s asylum policy late on June 8. The pact, which has yet to be implemented in the European Parliament, has been described as “historic”. However, human rights groups say it is likely to further violate the rights of asylum applicants.
Under an existing agreement, any asylum seeker’s port-of-entry country is tasked with processing their application. This has put an undue burden on southern European countries, such as Italy, Greece and Spain, which are closer to established migration routes.
In order to avoid a humanitarian crisis on Europe’s borders, Germany, Austria and Sweden voluntarily accepted over a million refugees – many escaping Syria’s civil war – in 2015. Other EU members, however, like the eastern European Visegrad group, have closed off their countries to non-European refugees.
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faesar, called the agreement “historic,” while the country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it would “prevent conditions on the EU’s borders similar to Moria,” referring to an overcrowded refugee camp in Greece which burned down in 2020.
Critics say the deal is likely to keep more asylum-seekers locked up, increase deportations to unsafe third countries, and fail to live up to the EU’s human rights standards.
Under the new deal, frontline states would still be the main responsible for new arrivals, as until now. However, the new legislation would institute stricter asylum procedures, allowing states greater leeway in deeming an applicant not worthy of asylum. Border procedures would be extended from the existing four weeks to 12, during which time all asylum applicants would not be considered to have legally immigrated into the European Union.
The new stipulations would also likely lead to their incarceration during this time. Newly-built refugee camps in Greece resemble prisons, Amnesty International says. Their use is likely to spread across the continent. Pro-Asyl, a German human rights group, says that such detention facilities have hindered lawyers and NGO members from attending to new arrivals, increasing the chance of a miscarriage of justice. Extended deportation procedures also mean that asylum applicants could be held at the border for up to two years.
EU members clashed over deportation procedures, with Germany arguing that members could not send applicants back to states that do not fully comply with human rights standards, and states like Italy and Austria favoring greater leeway in which states are deemed safe for return. According to Politico, the final agreement largely favored the latter camp.
States like Italy and Austria, which favor the so-called ‘Rwanda Model’, want to have the freedom to deport failed asylum applicants to any third country, including countries which refugees never passed through (like Rwanda). The agreement that was reached last week stipulates that deportees must have a ‘valid’ connection to the country they are sent to, such as previous residence or family members. It would also leave deciding over what constitutes a valid connection largely to national governments. Such language could easily be molded to send refugees to countries in North Africa, such as Tunisia and Algeria, where prospective asylum applicants often spend months to a year waiting to be smuggled to Europe. Syrian refugees arriving in Greece, Pro-Asyl says, could be easily pushed back to Turkey if they are rejected.
Finally, the agreement establishes a ‘forced solidarity’ model by which EU member states have to take in some amount of refugees or be forced to pay into a common fund. At present, the EU’s goal is to relocate at least 30,000 migrants each year. Countries choosing to opt out would have to pay €20,000 ($21,600) per rejected migrant. However, it is unclear how the distribution of migrants will be enforced, as most favor northern European states like Germany or Sweden and intra-European borders are not monitored.
In what is believed to be a last-minute concession to Italy, the money could be used to finance undefined “projects” abroad, Politico says. It could thus be employed to grease send-back procedures and encourage south Mediterranean states, including unsavory governments like the ones in Libya, Turkey and Tunisia, to clamp down on smuggling routes.
The agreement is unlikely to stop migrants, who flee war, violence and poverty, from making the arduous journey. Some 966,000 applications for political protection were lodged in EU countries last year, up more than 50% from 2021. At least 25,700 have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014.
The largest group outside of Ukrainians are Syrians, who filed 132,000 applications in 2022.
Roughly one million Syrian asylum-seekers and refugees live in the EU. Germany alone hosts around 59% of them. Across Europe, Syrians have usually been provided with international protection status. However, procedures tend to be long, which is why many Syrians have taken dangerous routes to reach the continent. Around 94,000 Syrians made their way to Europe illicitly in 2022, the EU says – more than double the number in 2021.