“Immigrants will think twice before embarking for Europe,” assaults the new EU plan

“The old system no longer works.” After months of postponements, the European Commission has finally presented the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ with the aim of replacing the Dublin rules. The latter are considered obsolete, therefore, and to be abolished, by the president of the EU executive himself. Ursula von der Leyen. But the plan adopted today has already caused great perplexity.

What disappoints the Mediterranean countries is the absence of the obligation to relocate those landing on the Italian, Greek, Maltese, Cypriot and Spanish coasts. The EU executive, for its part, is committed to deterrence in departures and repatriation, as reflected in the words of the Swede Ylva johansson, Commissioner of Internal Affairs. The latter, when announcing the plan, warns that migrants considered without the right to asylum “will be repatriated” and this “will help” people who want to reach Europe “to think twice before paying large sums to traffickers and put your life at risk ”.

Detention and repatriation

The word “solidarity” in the communication accompanying the proposal is quoted 22 times, but it almost always refers to the help that EU countries must give each other and certainly not to the feeling of welcome towards those who arrive. Brussels aims to solve the problem of the flow of irregular migrants without the requirements for refugee status with a careful identification procedure and “compulsory control” that will be carried out at the “external border of the European Union” and that can last up to five days. And “detention” is recommended to prevent undocumented immigrants from disappearing into thin air and going into hiding.

The EU’s “external border” “is where the European Union must close the gap between external border controls and asylum and return procedures,” the text reads. The communication – notes the Adnkronos agency – uses very cautious language, being careful to avoid any reference to camps intended to host immigrants in border areas, such as Lesbos, on the maritime border between Greece and Turkey, which the Commission undertakes to build, together with the Greek authorities, after the one in Moria was destroyed by several fires. But the Commission’s low profile in terminology has not convinced those who oppose the detention and repatriation of migrants.

Attacks from the left: “Fortress Europe”

According to the Greens, “a sustainable, equitable and humane European asylum system could have been created from the ashes of Moria.” The Commission, the ecologists write, “really could have put an end to the hotspots and introduced immediate relocation of asylum seekers after their registration, the only way to apply real solidarity between Member States.” “Instead – they conclude – he bent in front of Orban and his wives.”

“It is an authoritarian drift – the United Left Gue worsens – that places deportation at the center” of the “inhuman project of Fortress Europe”. The radical left-wing parliamentary group maintains that most asylum seekers “will be unfairly denied protection” and migrants “will be repatriated to the country from which they fled.” “This proposal is contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU,” the MEPs cut off.

The anger of the right: “Italy will be a refugee camp”

For opposite reasons, criticism also came from the right. “The EU Commission presented it as a momentous turning point for migration and asylum policy, for me, to be honest, it smells a lot of scam”, was the comment of the MEP from the Brothers of Italy. Nicola Procaccini. What makes him lift his nose is above all the possibility that migrants with little chance of obtaining international protection remain in the country of first entry pending repatriation. “Let’s get ready to see Italy transform into a huge open-air refugee camp,” adds Procaccini.

M5s: “We need mandatory solidarity”

More diplomatic is the comment of Laura Ferrara of the 5 Star Movement. “We are waiting to read the proposed regulation in detail – he explains in a note – but on one thing we will be inflexible: the solidarity systems that are introduced must be mandatory and not voluntary in all circumstances.” “It is unthinkable to deny solidarity to the goodwill of individual countries, Italian borders are always European borders and not only in times of emergency and therefore all member countries must contribute proportionally to the management of this phenomenon”, concludes the pentastellata .

The legislative process

Following the Commission proposal, the ball now passes to the European Parliament, which will face the responsibility of agreeing on a text that also appeals to the Council, where national governments are represented. Otherwise, there is a risk of a new stalemate in the Dublin rules, the reform process of which began almost five years ago and then ended in stalemate. “A new beginning” is, of course, the slogan chosen by the European Commission to announce the reform.