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– Tensions in the EU have started to rise. This can make it difficult to come up with something very different from the asylum system Europe has today, Prof Hakan G. Sicakkan from the University of Bergen tells NRK.
SKEPTIC: Professor Hakan G. Sicakkan from the University of Bergen believes that very different views on the affiliation of asylum seekers will make it difficult for EU countries to agree to a new system.
Photo: E vivos Senneset / University of Bergen
He is a professor in the Department of Comparative Politics and leads a major international project investigating refugee protection.
Sicakkan believes that there are two completely different perceptions of belonging that collide when EU countries agree.
– Eastern European countries like Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have an understanding of belonging based on ethnicity. In many Western European countries, you are considered a citizen if you support the national project that a country is, regardless of your race or ethnicity, he says.
In migration and asylum policy, ethnic self-understanding often manifests itself as a strict asylum policy, continues the professor.
– Migration and refugee policy is one of the areas that has proven most difficult to integrate into the EU. All countries will decide for themselves who they want to let in, says Sicakkan.
The Dublin Agreement could go down in history
EU President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the Dublin Regulation will go down in history and will be replaced by a new agreement.
Photo: Reuters / NTB
Earlier today, it was announced that the European Commission wants to scrap the current Dublin Regulation on asylum cases. The plan is a new system with common asylum and return structures. In addition, it must have a “strong solidarity mechanism”.
– I have heard what you are saying about the urgency of finding a European solution to Europe’s challenge in the field of migration, EU President Ursula von der Leyen said today.
The Dublin Regulation was originally intended to prevent asylum seekers from traveling from one country to another in Europe and seeking asylum in the hope that one of the applications will be successful.
However, the large increase in asylum arrivals in 2015-16 put pressure on the plan. Most of the applicants came to Europe from the south, and Italy and Greece, in particular, perceived the plan as unfair.
In a week, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson will present the commission’s proposal for a new asylum pact for the union. It has become particularly relevant after the fires in the Moria camp on Lesbos contributed to a new awareness of the situation of migrants and refugees arriving in the EU.
– The core of that proposal is a commitment to a more European system, said von der Leyen, before announcing that the Dublin Regulation may go down in history.
Cautiously positive government, skeptical FRP
Secretary of State Hilde Barstad (H) of the Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness believes that the initiative of the EU Commission is basically good:
POSITIVE: Secretary of State Hilde Barstad (H) at the Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness welcomes an asylum plan in the EU that facilitates the cooperation of countries.
Photo: Erlend Blaalid Oldeide / NRK
– There are weaknesses in the way Europe manages to tackle these problems today. There is great disagreement on how we should follow up on this. So if we can agree on a new framework around this, it’s good, says Secretary of State Hilde Barstad (H) at the NRK Ministry of Justice and Emergency Management.
A new agreement should contain some means of reaction that will allow me to get more countries on the distribution of asylum seekers, says the Secretary General of the Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers, Ann-Magrit Austenå. She believes that a new agreement should contain some means of reaction that allows me to get more countries on the distribution of asylum seekers.
WANTS SANCTIONS: The Secretary General of the Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers, Ann-Magrit Austenå, believes that countries that do not contribute to solving the challenges of migrants should be financially punished.
Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB scanpix
– It has been shown that volunteering does not work. And there are some, especially Eastern European countries, who refuse to take their share of responsibility, Austenå tells NRK.
Therefore, he believes that the new European asylum system should guarantee cuts in transfers from the EU to individual countries that do not take their share of responsibility for asylum seekers arriving in Europe.
Progress Party immigration policy spokesman Jon Engen-Helgheim believes that Ursula von der Leyen is taking asylum policy in one direction.
SKEPTIC: FRP immigration policy spokesman Jon Engen-Helgheim fears that a new system will tempt more people to seek asylum.
Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB scanpix
– The signal you are giving now is that you do not have to seek asylum in the first safe country you arrive in. In addition, we will have a distribution system, so that if you only manage to reach Europe, then they can take you by plane to other destinations where you want to land. Then more asylum seekers come and not fewer, says Engen-Helgheim.
