The right to asylum is breaking down in the EU. international

A Europe surrounded by fences and walls, which sends asylum seekers to detention camps outside the territory – so that they cannot be seen or felt – and which focuses on how to deport more and better, shapes Is taking. The EU is cracking down on the right to asylum, one of the values ​​on which today’s bloc, born after the Second World War, is based.

It is a political gesture in a continent that is going through a demographic winter and losing human capital and competitiveness. It does not come with a migratory wave that tests the seams of the reception system, as was the case in 2015. This comes at a time when irregular arrivals into the Union have – on average – fallen, but in which extreme right-wing and anti-immigration populism is growing stronger and the traditional right is beginning to ride the same wave.

On Thursday, at a key summit for Community asylum policy, leaders of the Twenty-Seven called for consideration of “new measures to prevent and counter irregular migration”. A large box in which many also called for the creation of deportation centers in non-EU countries, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen opened with a letter sent to leaders on the eve of the meeting and which was The right-wing Giorgia Meloni’s Italy has already launched in Albania.

The head of the Community Executive, who will soon begin her second term and who was approved thanks to the votes of her political family, the European People’s Party, as well as the Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens, has expressed her views with extreme positions. The flirtation has deepened. , Right and begins to demonstrate what immigration policy he will create for the next five years. The German conservatives have announced a reform of the regulation on deportations in order to toughen it – as demanded by fifteen countries – which, in addition, could fit a formula for opening expulsion camps outside the community area.

This is an idea that was shelved in 2018 due to legal doubts. And now, it is making its way to Albania with the example of the Meloni Protocol, despite the fact that it failed miserably in its launch this week. Of course, because of legal problems. “The Italian model is a failure: it is expensive and logistically complex. But it doesn’t matter, it’s political and it has opened a turning point, which other people, in their own way, want to do,” says an experienced European source. In fact, the Netherlands wants to go even harder in Uganda, Denmark is going to send about 300 foreign prisoners serving sentences in Danish prisons to a center in Kosovo, and Albania claims that other countries are trying to copy Meloni. Have contacted him for this.

The Twenty-Seven have this week endorsed violations of the right to asylum in the EU, justifying their suspension in certain situations. Like the present in Poland. Its prime minister, conservative Donald Tusk (like von der Leyen, of the European People’s Party), denounces that Russia and Belarus are using migrants as weapons, calling them another way to destabilize their countries and the entire EU. Sending across the border for. war. Hybrid, which has already been observed on the eastern border and in the Baltic in 2021. Tusk made the announcement days before suspending asylum rights – just as Finland had done months earlier by closing its borders with Russia. The Commission has not reprimanded him and the leaders have supported him.

The list of model changes comes just months after the migration pact was approved, a set of rules that should enter into force in mid-2026 and which establishes a solidarity-based distribution of asylum seekers among member states, a Now they have come to the community area. Now, Brussels is trying to delve deeper into formulas to stop them from coming – such as agreements with countries that violate human rights, including Tunisia or Egypt, to control their borders and give them money in exchange for preventing departures. To send – and to facilitate – their expulsion after coming into the Union.

Von der Leyen has committed, between now and next year, to reviewing the concept of “designated safe third countries”; Where asylum seekers can be deported. The intention, explains a diplomatic source, is to create a European list that is far more comprehensive than most countries now have, with the aim of increasing the number of states where people can be deported. Not only for its own citizens, but also for other asylum seekers. “There are migrants who need protection, we are fully aware of that, but this protection does not necessarily have to be in Europe, but can be in safe third countries,” the European Commission president said.

“We are unquestionably moving towards the erosion of the right to asylum as traditionally understood, possibly even towards its death,” says Iole Fontana, a professor and migration expert at the University of Catania, who calls a “paradigm shift”. Let’s see. Thus, the political scientist includes agreements with third countries, the “instrumentalization” of the concept of “safe third country” and the growing tendency to equate asylum seekers with security risks.

The thing that is flying in Brussels, that is being debated and discussed in many member states like Denmark – with a coalition government led by the Social Democrats, but on the hardest wing on immigration issues – is the right of asylum. , which includes the Geneva Conventions of the 1950s and in international and Community law, is chronological. That there should be improvement in this.

Nathalie Tosi, director of the Istituto di Affari Internazionali in Rome, believes that, with the debate over external migration policy, the EU is experiencing a kind of “Groundhog Day”. The issue returns to the table again and again, from the idea of ​​deportation centers (with whatever name) to agreements with non-EU countries, such as the one reached with Turkey in 2016. The method that does not seem to be working, but because we cannot think of any alternative, because we are not ready to accept the fact that this is not a problem that can be solved by handing over to third countries , we keep trying the same thing over and over again,” says the expert

left turn

Tosi highlights the drift of current immigration policy into a growing shift to the right on the continent. In the European Parliament, in the Commission, in the European Council. The entire political spectrum, including some social democratic parties, has moved to the right, as in Germany, where the immigration debate has hardened and, apart from a good number of members, ordered the closure of the borders of the Schengen area. The state and that, most of the time with the argument of security concerns, can deliver the final blow to free movement within the community area. “The Europe of welcome has long since disappeared. Let’s think about the thousands of people who have died in the Mediterranean trying to reach the EU… We have been in a hostile Europe for a long time, but now we see that trend is accelerating,” says Tosi. Are.

The extreme right sets the agenda, but the truth is that most countries generally aim to tighten immigration policies. “The leaders want to send the message that they are in control of the borders, of arrivals; They believe that if not, they will not guarantee citizens’ trust in other matters,” says a highly placed community source. He added, “There is a clear shift in discourse in a debate that is purely political.”

A debate led by the hard wing against immigration. In particular the Italian Giorgia Meloni, leader of a party with fascist roots. However, his message is the same – albeit with a different tone – that national populist Viktor Orbán has been sending for years. On Thursday, just before the summit, a conference led by Italy, the Netherlands (with the far-right led government coalition) and Denmark brought together the Italian delegations in Austria, Cyprus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece and Brussels . Hungary, Malta and Slovakia will talk about immigration. Von der Leyen also attended that breakfast. The Social Democrats and Greens questioned the German role and flow. “He is not defending European law or putting it into practice,” criticizes Greens co-leader Bas Eeckhout.

However, a tougher stance on immigration is gaining ground across the union. With the exception of Spain, where President Pedro Sánchez has spoken out against the indignity of deportation camps such as those in Albania – which was also cited as an example by the leader of the Popular Party at the time, Alberto Núñez Feijú –, the countries that follow this formula are The doubt regarding this has been done due to economic or logistics reasons. This is the case of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“What is happening is not only destroying the right to seek asylum – turning it into a concession, and holding the fight against irregular migration hostage – but fundamentally at odds with the EU’s values ​​and human rights. It also weakens its commitment,” he warned Fontana.