In February 2012, Greece
announced that it will build a “six-mile long fence topped with razor wire on
its border with Turkey
to deter illegal immigrants.”[1] While the fence, even during its construction, cut
arrivals of illegal immigrants by land down, these outdated measures of control
and deterrence have simply diverted immigration flows
to the sea and the Greek islands of the Aegean.
Thousands of ‘boat people’, mostly from Africa, attempt each year to cross the Mediterranean in overcrowded and frequently unseaworthy
vessels in order to enter the southernmost EU member states. As Greece was about completing its fence, twenty
Iraqis drowned when, within sight of Turkey,
their small overcrowded boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos.
Who were the people in the boat? What were their
motivations and needs? What was their legal status and in whose responsibility
did they fall? Migration is a multi-faceted and highly complex phenomenon.
People may move for a great variety of reasons: to flee persecution, conflict or
intolerable living conditions due to poverty and environmental degradation.
They may seek enhanced economic opportunities or they move in order to realize
other personal objectives. People increasingly do not move for one single
reason but have mixed motivations and different groups of migrants move
alongside each other, using the same means and routes of travel.
Some 14 years ago, at the EU Summit in Tampere,
European leaders called on the European Union to develop common policies on
asylum and immigration so that there is a harmonized or common way for
immigrants and asylum seekers to seek and obtain entry to all EU states. As the
Union expanded, however, this vision
contracted. In 2008, the European Union finally decided to give a new impetus
to the development of a common immigration and asylum policy. Based on a
security and national sovereignty rationale, the European Pact on Immigration
and Asylum, however, gave priority to national competence over that of the EU
in the area of immigration and asylum. So far, there is still no sign of a
common asylum policy – the latest deadline, December 2012, has passed largely
unnoticed – nor has a common policy on migration been realized.
According to Søren Jessen-Petersen, former Assistant
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the EU, in the absence of a common migration
policy, has for years attempted to manage migration through asylum policies.
Consequently, anybody trying to enter European countries without a visa could
only hope to gain entry by, often with the expensive support of smugglers,
convincingly presenting a story claiming persecution. In this process, the
asylum institution has been discredited with asylum seekers facing suspicion
and pressures to provide almost impossible burden of proof. Thus, not just the
absence of a common policy but also much of existing policies is part of the
problem: Many migrants are now forced to use illegal means if they want to
access Europe at all. With the Dublin II
Regulation in force, the initial EU country of entry is responsible for the
processing of asylum applications. This also implies the relocation of
unauthorized immigrants throughout Europe to those countries until their cases
are adjudicated with the consequence of particularly Greece
and Italy being turned into
the “waiting rooms” of irregular immigrants to Europe.
Unforeseen events like the Arab Spring or the conflict
in Syria
can overstretch the asylum capacity of any country. Sharing of responsibility
in managing migration among frontline and other EU member states thus remains a
key challenge for the European Union. However, there is no doubt that most
countries in northern Europe are hiding behind
those with external borders. Borrowing from EU Commissioner for Justice and
Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, “Europe’s commitment to solidarity was tested
in 2011 [and] it is worrying that Europe
collectively failed the test.”[2] Yet, every person is entitled to the right to seek asylum. Therefore,
the availability and scope of protection should not depend on where an
individual is able to seek asylum or by which procedures and under
which conditions his or her request is assessed. It is especially the
denial or neglect of social and economic rights during the processing phase
that causes suffering and deteriorates the already vulnerable position of the
individual.
International legal obligations and EU member states’
proclaimed high aspirations for human rights aside, there are also good reasons
to see international migration as an economically positive phenomenon. Human
mobility has great potential to promote development, economic growth and reduce
poverty worldwide. A future shortage of labor in Europe
due to a declining and aging population means that the EU will need an influx
of immigrants to keep the workforce stable as well as to finance living
standards and rising costs for healthcare. Already today, Europe and the US compete for
talent internationally and lobby intensively to attract high-skilled migrants.
There is also substantial need for low-skilled labor as migrants frequently
fill the most menial ‘3D’ – dirty, dangerous and difficult – jobs which
European labor is often no longer prepared to accept.
According to forecasts, Europe
would need to open its borders to more than 1.3 billion migrants to keep
the dependency ratio constant between the years 2000 and 2050.[3]
An honest discourse on asylum and migration in the EU
must certainly recognize the challenges to social cohesion and legitimate
concerns of the receiving societies that develop with the arrival of migrants.
But it must also be informed by the political, humanitarian and economic
reasons behind a constructive migration policy. Europe
has to make up its mind: Managing migration through asylum policies alone
ignores the mixed motives of people on the move. Outdated measures of
deterrence and control fall way short of addressing the challenges faced by
frontline states. Instead, solidarity and burden-sharing must not only be
discussed but practiced. Above all, increasing populist politics, intolerance and
xenophobia in some member states must not make the EU become indifferent or
less generous towards the world’s victims of conflict and persecution. Policy
makers, the media and the wider public must realize that humanitarian values
are at stake in this development.
[2] Cecilia Malmström, “Refugees: How Europe failed,” Times Of Malta,
January 19, 2012, accessed March 30, 2013 at
2012http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120119/opinion/Refugees-How-Europe-failed.402977.
[3] Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan, Exceptional
People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2011), 248.
Published On April
3, 2013
http://www.euspeak.eu/the-eu-has-to-finally-make-up-its-mind-about-a-common-asylum-and-migration-policy/
