The EU’s migration policy is only stable if those who do not have the right to stay here are actually sent back, Van der Leyen’s letter says. However, currently, this happens to only 20 percent of rejected immigrants. The Commission’s proposal now contains “clear cooperation obligations for returnees” and aims to “effectively streamline the return process”.
The head of the commission said countries must create a “level of harmony and trust” so that each member state recognizes the other’s decision. This will ensure that “migrants subject to a return decision in one country cannot use loopholes in the system to avoid returning to another”.
Expert Naas: “Don’t sacrifice the core value of human dignity”
Two refugee camps set up by Italy on Albanian soil are accepting the first migrants. And the EU Commission wants to present a draft law on the return of migrants who have entered the country illegally. Migration expert Gerald Naas was a guest in the studio.
Knaus has serious concerns about the project’s success, he told Ö1’s lunchtime magazine on Tuesday. The EU has been unable to implement transfers of asylum seekers within Europe, where it is clear who is legally responsible: “Now you think it would be easier with countries in West Africa or North Africa or other parts of the world.” No country is ready to permanently accept all those forced to leave Europe. And the EU is still unable to stop smugglers in the English Channel.
“low level” in unity
Additionally, cohesion within the EU is at an “all-time low”. According to Knaus, Germany and Austria are bearing the brunt of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. Over the past ten years, the two countries have together provided protection to more than three-quarters of all Syrians and more than 50 percent of all Afghans in the EU.
Knaus also missed the foresight in the EU strategy: Syria, millions of internally displaced people and new refugees now coming from Lebanon, “appears only in passing in the Commissioner’s letter. Nothing is said about Ukraine, what is said about Turkey is that we have cooperation, but it doesn’t work, And not a word about the reasons for the flight now unfolding in the Middle East.
Labor reform is already overdue
Only in the spring did EU member states strongly agree on the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which provides, among other things, stricter deportation rules and faster asylum procedures directly at the EU’s external borders. Since then, countries such as the Netherlands and Hungary have requested an exemption from the common asylum rules.
Most recently, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a partial suspension of asylum. He accused Russia and its neighbor Belarus of deliberately smuggling migrants across the Polish border and seeking to destabilize the European Union. “The manner in which this right of asylum is used is contrary to the essence of the right of asylum,” Tusk explained.
EU summit: Irregular migration a key topic
The EU Commission wants to present a new draft law on the return of migrants who have entered the country irregularly. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced this in a letter to the 27 member states. Despite a 40 percent drop in arrivals compared to the previous year, a tougher asylum policy will be a major topic at the upcoming EU summit.
A key topic in the Council of the European Union
The issue of migration and income will be high on the agenda of the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday: according to a summit draft, heads of state and government “call for decisive action at all levels to enlarge and accelerate the European Union”. A new general approach should be presented”.
In her letter, van der Leyen calls for tougher action against criminal asylum seekers: she calls for “robust rules for deporting people who pose a serious threat to public order or internal security”. Because “those who commit crimes, wherever they come from, must know that this will not be tolerated,” warns the head of the commission. The vast majority of people coming to Europe do not have criminal intentions.
