Despite the adoption of a Common Pact in mid-May, many European countries are increasing measures to curb immigration and restrict the right to asylum, aligning themselves with the positions of far-right movements which continue to gain ground in Europe.
The reestablishment of German border controls, the construction of detention camps outside the EU by Italy, the suspension in Cyprus of the processing of asylum applications from Syrian applicants, laws authorising pushbacks at the border in Finland and Lithuania, or the threat by the Netherlands to withdraw from the European Pact on Migration and Asylum before it even comes into force in 2026… Under the pretext of dealing with “emergency” or “crisis” situations, derogations and deviations from the common rules defined by the European Union are increasing.
We are witnessing the “continuation of a shift to the right in migration policies”, which reflects the rise of far-right parties in the EU, explains Jérôme Vignon, an analyst at the Jacques Delors Institute, referring to a “quite clearly protectionist and conservative tendency”.
“Anti-immigration positions, which were previously the preserve of the extreme right, are starting to contaminate centre-right and even centre-left parties,” adds Florian Trauner, a migration specialist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking university in Brussels.
The German case is instructive. The emotion aroused by two recent attacks committed in the country by radicalized individuals, combined with the triumph of the AfD (extreme right) at the polls, prompted the government of Olaf Scholz to expel 28 Afghans to their country, which is nevertheless run by the Taliban, and to reinstate border controls for six months.
“Strong message”
In recent years, the countries of the Schengen area, starting with France, have certainly regularly resorted to the exemptions provided for in the texts, but these “must remain strictly exceptional” and “proportionate”, the European Commission pleaded with Germany.
Berlin, which welcomed more than a million refugees, mainly Syrians, in 2015-2016, and more than a million Ukrainian exiles since the invasion of the country by Russia, is this time sending a “strong message” to its public opinion as well as to its European partners, believes Mr. Trauner.
Migratory pressure “remains significant” with more than 500,000 asylum applications registered in the EU for the first six months of the year, he said, and Germany, which received about a quarter of them alone, criticizes the countries of southern Europe for allowing migrants to circulate without processing their asylum applications upstream, as provided for in the Dublin system. The latter, for their part, denounce the lack of solidarity from the rest of Europe, which leaves them to manage the reception of refugees on the front line.
The German decision has also provoked strong reactions, revealing the profound disagreements that are shaking European capitals.
“Chancellor Scholz, welcome to the club!” congratulated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on a crusade against any common migration policy, while Warsaw denounced an “unacceptable” measure and Athens was worried about the challenge to the “fundamental achievements of the EU”.
“Climate of impunity”
As violations of the rights of refugees and migrants become commonplace across the continent, the European Union’s “inability” to enforce its own regulations “only encourages a climate of impunity where unilateral migration policies and practices can proliferate,” said Adriana Tidona, a researcher at Amnesty International.
The various experts interviewed by AFP, however, moderate the real scope of these unilateral measures.
When Germany puts in place “targeted controls”, it does not close its borders, and this country in the midst of a demographic crisis is taking “in parallel” other measures to “respond to the need for qualified labor”, points out Sophie Meiners.
And this researcher at the German Institute of International Relations cites the agreements signed by Berlin in September with Kenya and Uzbekistan to attract qualified workers in fields such as IT, technology or medical care.
Similarly, if the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, saw a “planned invasion”, an “ethnic replacement” in the arrival of migrants when she was still an opposition MP for the far-right Fratelli d’Italia party in 2017, this did not prevent her government from validating the entry into the transalpine territory of 452,000 foreign workers for the period 2023-2025.
Facing her British counterpart Keir Starmer on Monday, the day after a new shipwreck in the Channel which left eight dead, she praised an Italian “model”, with the signing of a controversial agreement to outsource asylum applications with Tirana, providing for the creation of two detention centres for migrants in Albania.
Rome also points to a sharp decline in migrant arrivals on its territory due to its policies. Which does not mean, far from it, that they have decreased throughout the EU.
The International Organization for Migration and NGOs that help migrants in the Mediterranean believe that many people seeking to reach Europe have changed their route. Instead of arriving in Italy, they are simply arriving elsewhere.