The European Union has been entangled, once again, in the immigration debate for months. Coinciding with the rise of the extreme right, most European countries have hardened their positions regarding irregular flows of people, which has led Germany to reintroduce border controls in the Schengen area and Poland to suspend the right to asylum. In Brussels they present immigration as one of the main “challenges” facing the continent. However, there is no crisis and the data does not justify the hyperventilation of the majority of European capitals.
Frontex has detected a 42% drop in arrivals of undocumented people in 2024 with 166,000 people entering EU territory. The estimate is that, at this rate, the figures will be similar to those of 2021 (in 2022 and 2023 there was a slight peak). Despite this decrease and the increase in returns to the countries of origin, the logic that is being imposed in the community club is that of the total hardening of the immigration policy, to basically be an anti-immigration policy.
According to Frontex, the largest decrease in irregular migration occurred on the Western Balkan and Mediterranean routes, where the number of people intercepted fell by 79% and 64%, respectively. The increase occurred, however, in the east, where the border between Poland and the Baltic countries recorded almost three times as many attempted irregular entries, with a 192% increase in interceptions and a total of 13,195 cases. The Canary Islands route has also grown by 100%.
However, the data are still far from a migration crisis like that of the Syrian refugees nine years ago, which strained the seams of the community club. And now, with much smaller numbers, a majority of member states are proposing a series of measures that were inconceivable a few years ago. On the table right now it is the creation of deportation centers outside the EUfollowing in the wake of the far-right Giorgia Meloni and her agreement with Albania; and including the expulsion of migrants to countries other than their own.
Spain, Germany and France have demanded an acceleration in the implementation of the Migration and Asylum Pactscheduled for the summer of 2026. But a majority of member states have already passed the screen and consider that it falls short. The threat is that this agreement, which took years of negotiation to close, will be directly dead..
The pressure comes from a majority of capitals that demand tougher measures to combat irregular immigration. And they have found in the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, an ally who has taken up the gauntlet of proposals such as that of deportation centers. The German made a gesture with all those countries, led by Italy, Holland and Denmark, by meeting with the leaders just before the meeting of the 27 in the European Council. In total, eleven prime ministers met with the head of the community executive (the three conveners were joined by Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary).
Sánchez rejects deportation centers
However, voices against were also heard. “We are not in favor of that type of formulas. They do not address any of the problems and create new ones,” said Pedro Sánchez in reference to those centers outside EU territory: “We opt for a vision much more focused on the external dimension of the migration phenomenon, as we can anticipate the arrival of migrants by strengthening cooperation. That is why we have asked that Frontex reach agreements with the governments of Senegal, Mauritania and West Africa to collaborate on the ground.” The Spanish president has defended a “humanitarian” vision of the migratory phenomenon and has also demanded more community budget for this matter, which currently only allocates 2,000 million euros.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, joined Spain’s rejection of the deportation centers, although not precisely because of a perspective of violation of human rights. “It is clear that when you look at the figures, concepts that represent small drops are not the real solution for a country as large as Germany,” argued Scholz, who has reintroduced border controls. In an interview in the Financial Timesthe Greek Prime Minister, who was one of the participants in the ‘counter summit’ and who signed a document with fourteen other capitals seeking a tightening of immigration policy, questioned whether the centers’ proposal could be implemented at the level of the EU.
Syria, a safe country?
One of the issues that the leaders of Italy, Austria and Cyprus put on the table was the possibility of once again considering Syria a safe third country to return people who fled the war in that country. The argument is largely supported by the fact that 300,774 Syrian citizens and 102,283 Lebanese have crossed into Syria due to the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
But, beyond the proposals that are exerting a right-winging of the immigration discourse, the entrenchment of the discussion at the summit of the leaders of the 27 occurred fundamentally due to the position of Poland, which was opposed from the first moment to the conclusions on the immigration issue, despite the fact that the language was very measured and even at one point there was not even an allusion to the Migration and Asylum Pact but rather to the existing generic concept “legislation”.
Poland, the great obstacle to the migration pact
The previous Polish government, the ultranationalist Law and Justice, opposed that agreement, but the popular Donald Tusk has also threatened to skip it. In fact, it was the main obstacle in negotiating the conclusions. Sources from the Polish delegation assured that their position was that of the statement agreed earlier by the European People’s Party, which provides exceptions for the application of these regulations.
“It is necessary to apply the new Migration and Asylum Pact. The implementation will not affect the exercise of the responsibilities of the Member States in terms of maintaining public order and safeguarding internal security. At the same time, we want to continually improve it by working on innovative solutions,” states the text of the PPE, which also endorses the Meloni deportation centers.
What they maintain in Warsaw is that the pact not only does not help them but complicates the battle against hybrid threats or the instrumentalization they have on the border with Russia and Belarus. And that is what is behind Tusk’s decision to suspend the right to asylum, despite being reminded in Brussels that it is an obligation of member states to offer international protection.
And finally, there have been conclusions from the European Council in which specific mention is made of that issue: “Russia and Belarus, or any other country, cannot be allowed to abuse our values, including the right to asylum, and undermine our democracies. The European Council expresses its solidarity with Poland and with the Member States facing these challenges. Exceptional situations require appropriate measures. The European Council recalls its determination to ensure effective control of the Union’s external borders by all available means, including with the support of the European Union, in line with EU and international law. “It reaffirms its commitment to fight against the instrumentalization of migrants for political purposes.”
The 27 also urge the European Commission to propose new regulations for “urgent” returns and propose conditioning the visa and trade policy with third countries in the framework of collaboration with deportations. The text does not expressly refer to the Migration and Asylum Pact while it does include an allusion to “new ways of preventing and counteracting irregular immigration, in line with EU legislation and international law.” The debate, although it has existed for decades, has only just begun.
#entangled #migration #drop #arrivals
