Migrants, the new solidarity pact that goes beyond the Dublin agreement

The European Commission presented its plan to reform the Dublin regulation that President von der Leyen had promised to cancel under pressure from southern countries, but resistance from Austria, Poland and Hungary has diluted the central point: mandatory relocation. of migrants. As he explains Europatoday the result is an incomplete text, in a certain surrealist way, that raises flexible solidarity Helping a Member State under migratory pressure that requests help: that is, it will be up to European States to choose between relocating asylum seekers on their territory according to pre-established quotas, or sponsoring (“return sponsorship”) the repatriation of irregular migrants who they are not entitled to international protection. .

Don’t you want immigrants from Italy? So pay for repatriations

The text presented by the Commission foresees three different scenarios for the application of the flexible solidarity:

• situations resulting from the disembarkation of migrants in an EU port following search and rescue operations at sea;
  situations of pressure or risk of pressure on the immigration management system of a Member State;
  crisis situations, such as the one in 2015 after the civil war in Syria.

When a Member State finds itself in one of the three scenarios, it requests the Commission to activate the solidarity mechanisms and the Commission evaluates the request and decides to activate the relocation. The redistribution is initially planned on the basis of quotas, established according to the GDP (50%) and the population (50%) of each Member State.

However, as we have seen, one has been inserted into the text exit for countries opposed to solidarityIn fact, it will be up to each Member State to decide how to implement this solidarity, attending to a part of the asylum seekers or dealing with repatriation, or “other forms of operational support” (for example, the dispatch of border guards).

What’s the matter with him migrants awaiting repatriation? They remain in the country of first arrival, but the Member State that has chosen to take over their repatriation has eight months (four in the event of a state of crisis) to return them to their country of origin; If it does not do so, after this period, it must complete the procedures by taking the migrants in question to its own territory.

In addition there is also a correction mechanismIf the Commission finds that at least a “critical mass” (at least 70%) of the solidarity contribution requested for the beneficiary country has not been reached, it calls a “solidarity forum” in which it seeks to fill the gaps. In this case, the Community Executive may impose additional relocations or, optionally, a part of the repatriation sponsorships, to a Member State that has not made the expected contribution, in order to reach at least the “critical mass”.

Another important novelty of the system proposed by the Commission is the “pre-entry screening”, with which we try to make the “filter” that should allow the separation of asylum seekers with good possibilities of obtaining international protection much more quickly and effective. by “economic migrants” who are not entitled to it and who, therefore, must be repatriated as soon as possible. The “screening” (which will last a maximum of five days) will apply to all third-country nationals who cross the EU borders without authorization, and involves fingerprint identification, health and security controls, registration in the database of Eurodac data. After selection, irregular migrants can be channeled to the appropriate procedure for them: the normal procedure to obtain asylum, or a new “border procedure”, which includes a “fast track”. , maximum 12 days) to check if the conditions for requesting asylum really exist or if, on the other hand, repatriation is more likely to be decided.

The EU proposal to convince Orban and Kurz

As already said in a Previous article, the European Commission’s plan to overcome Dublin regulation It will not include mechanisms for the automatic distribution of migrants valid for all EU countries, as requested by our government, but rather a “flexible contribution”. This is a way of overcoming the resistance of the group of states, including Austria, Poland and Hungary (but also the Netherlands), which do not intend to host in their territory a fixed quota of those who disembark, for example, for Lampedusa or Greece.

the “new pact on migration and asylumin Brussels, in other words, it tries to get around the main obstacle that has broken down in recent years any attempt to agree the EU countries on a common management of arrivals. The proposal, from the Italian point of view, is less ambitious than that advanced, for example, European Parliament in the previous legislature, it provided for an automatic distribution of asylum seekers. And this, on our part, could generate a political reaction, since the 5-Star Movement, at that time, did not vote on Parliament’s proposal, considering it too soft.

In any case, the German president for the moment seems more focused on finding a practical solution that can unite especially the anti-migrant front that she has found in leaders such as Viktor Orban or Sebastian Kurz the benchmarks, at least for now. The “flexible contribution” aims precisely at this: those who do not want to take care of the reception, will have to take care of the repatriation of those who, despite having applied for asylum, do not have the requirements to obtain a residence permit.

The knot of repatriation

Put like that, it seems like a viable solution. But between saying and doing there is reality and bureaucratic gaps: migrants who arrive irregularly, in fact, know that to take time they must do asylum application even if they know they don’t have right. At that time, due to the length of the bureaucratic procedures and the impossibility of maintaining them in the reception centers, most of them become untraceable. Added to this are the difficulties for the repatriation of those whose asylum applications have been rejected: in 2018, only 36% of irregular migrants in the EU who received an expulsion order were actually repatriated. How to solve this problem?

The main objective of the Commission proposal is to cut red tape. The so-called first pillar of the new Pact provides for “an integrated border procedure”, which “for the first time includes a pre-entry control that covers the identification of all persons who cross the external borders of the EU without authorization or who are have been landed after a search and rescue operation, “read a note from Brussels. This will also involve “health and safety controls, fingerprinting and registration in the Eurodac database”, already provided for by current regulations.

After selection, the migrants “may be treated with the appropriate procedure, both at the border for certain categories” and “as part of a normal asylum procedure” for those seeking refugee status. As part of this border procedure, “swift decisions will be made on asylum or return,” the Commission promises. “All other procedures will be improved and will be subject to increased monitoring and operational support from EU agencies,” which will also use a digital infrastructure to monitor applications.

Reduced bureaucratic times, at least in intentions, we went to “solidarity”. Here, as we said, there are several possibilities: or State X (for example Hungary) is in charge of hosting a quota of migrants from those landed, for example, in Greece. Or it provides for the repatriation of a quota of those who do not have the right to asylum. According to what you anticipated from the pan-European newspaper Political, the Commission foresees that the country that wants to attend the repatriations will have eight months to implement them. If not, you will have to welcome them.

This clause could harden the positions of those countries that do not have the appropriate ‘diplomatic levers’ to favor repatriations (since to implement them an agreement is needed with the states of origin of these migrants, as Italy recently did with Tunisia). . Brussels, however, trusts in being able to act as a guarantor in the face of problems of this kind: the third pillar of the Plan, in fact, is that of partnerships with third countries. These “will help to address shared challenges such as migrant smuggling”, but also “to develop legal routes” for entry into EU countries and will ensure “the effective implementation of repatriation agreements and provisions”. The EU and its member states “will act together using a wide range of tools to support cooperation with third countries in the field of returns.” The Commission also aims to strengthen the control of external borders with the Permanent Corps of the European Border and Coast Guard, whose start of activities, as the Italian Agency writes, is scheduled for 1 January 2021.

The new solidarity pact that goes beyond the Dublin agreement

Now the proposal must be approved by the capitals in what promises to be a very tough negotiation with the Union divided between the Mediterranean countries and those who support them in the request for solidarity and the Central and Eastern European bloc against cooperation made up of the Visegrads. , Baltics and Austria.

For the Italian government, the Minister of European Affairs, Enzo Amendola, expressed himself promoting the Brussels proposal: “We are at a turning point. It will be a complex and delicate negotiation. But Italy is at the forefront.”

“The EU becomes the main ’round trip agency'”

“Through the Pact for Migration and Asylum proposed by the European Commission, the EU becomes the main ‘return travel agency’ for migrants and refugees from the Mediterranean.” Denounces it Euromed rights, a network dedicated to monitoring human rights in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

Euromed Rights says it is “deeply concerned that this pact could worsen the situation” for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees “for at least three reasons.” First, the activist network points out that the new system would focus “obsessively on the ‘patronage’ system.”

Euromed Rights denounces: “Member States such as Austria, Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic, which refuse to host refugees, will be able to ‘sponsor’ and deal with the repatriation to their countries of origin. Instead of favoring integration, the Pact adopts policy based on repatriation at any cost, even when asylum seekers could be subjected to discrimination, persecution and torture in their country of return. To date, there are no mechanisms to monitor what happens to migrants and refugees who are deported “.

The second sore point of the EU Commission proposal refers to “strengthening the outsourcing of border management” because, according to Euromed Rights, “the EU is strengthening cooperation with third countries by asking them to seal their borders and avoid that people leave. This cooperation is subject to the imposition of conditions by the EU. ” A policy that would lead to “more setbacks throughout the Mediterranean and greater cooperation with countries that have little experience in human rights and do not have an effective framework to protect the rights of people on the move.”