European Union and migration: 'Fortress Europe' is becoming a reality
By Michalis Psilos
The last regular European Council meeting before the summer break was held in Brussels, addressing a wide range of topics, but with migration higher up the agenda, after the tragic shipwreck in Pylos.
In a disaster that might be the worst ever in the Mediterranean, more than 500 people are still missing after an overcrowded fishing trawler sank in Ionian sea.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen has said that what happened was horrible and announced the disbursement of 15 billion euros for migration. Moreover, she underlined that the seriousness of the challenges today requires urgent and quick answers, as she spoke about strengthening the management of the EU’s external borders.
Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need of working more intensively in the region to promote economic growth and ensure stability to these countries.
EU leaders discussed von der Leyen’s plans. As countries like Austria, Hungary and Poland block any meaningful attempt to equitably share out refugees arriving in Greece, Italy, Malta or Spain, the work focuses by default on preventing migrants from entering. But the gathering has the potential to open a can of political worms even when the focus is on mostly uncontroversial issues like outsourcing the EU’s migrant problems, which is the sensitive nature of asylum rules in Europe.
In a letter to the 27 leaders, von der Leyen highlighted the need to “limit irregular departures” from Africa and Turkey, to “fight against migrant smuggling” and “work with partner countries” to ensure that people don’t leave or transit those countries.
“Alternative legal pathways,” should be found to enter the right way, she wrote. This often means the possibility for people to be resettled in Europe on humanitarian grounds if the U.N.’s refugee agency recommends it, and when an EU country is ready to take some in. “Comprehensive partnerships with third countries,” are key to the outsourcing approach.
From January to May ,more than 50,300 attempts were made to enter the EU without authorization, according to the border and coast guard agency Frontex. It’s more than double the number in the same period last year, and the most since 2017.
Under a new budget plan, Turkey would be given an additional 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion) to manage Syrian refugees. That would bring the EU’s total migrant support to the country in recent years to more than 13 billion euros ($14.2 billion).
Libya has received two more EU-funded patrol boats in February, and has “rescued or intercepted” 7,562 people trying to leave this year. In March, a U.N. fact-finding mission said that crimes against humanity are being committed against migrants in Libya.
The smugglers who organize these "voyages of the damned" to Europe have been using increasingly large boats to maximize their profits. Over $6,000 per head!
There is nothing to stop people suffering violence in Libya's concentration camps, often to the point of death, from attempting to cross the Mediterranean in search of a better future.
"European Pact" on asylum
The question for European governments is simple: did those people who died in yet another tragedy at the sea border, fleeing the violence in Libya, paying with their lives for the Union's policies, have an alternative? What would Europeans do in their place? Is the answer not to be found in the so-called latest "European Pact" on asylum-the newly-agreed EU position on 8 June. This plan institutionalises camps for refugees at the borders of the Union. The power to determine which country is deemed a safe destination for returning individuals, as well as the criteria for redistributing refugees, is now in the hands of individual member states rather than the EU as a whole. This means that people may be sent back to transit countries instead of the ones where their families reside. Instead, they can buy off their responsibility by transferring €20,000 per asylum seeker to countries in need.
'Fortress Europe' is becoming a reality, while an EU that cares for human rights should go in the opposite direction. For starters, the Dublin regulation needs a deep revision, as it has resulted in an unfair burden on the southern European member states. The European commission has introduced a voluntary solidarity mechanism, but stronger regulation is needed for all countries to participate and share responsibility.
The securitisation of Europe's external borders has meant preventing or violently pushing back people who try to access EU territory and deceitfully limiting access to asylum application procedures. Both the collaboration with partners who are notorious for their criminal actions — like the so-called Libyan coastguard in the Mediterranean — as well as the unlawful pushbacks by border officials alongside the borders with Greece, Croatia and Poland, should be replaced by a safe and fair treatment of people seeking refuge in Europe.
（Editor:Liao Yifan）
