Right-wing European governments look set to take another big swing of the axe to legal protections afforded to people seeking asylum and international protection.
It has been remarkable to witness the pace at which the centre ground inside the European Union has been pulled closer to what would have been an extreme, even anti-immigrant, position a couple of years ago.
New laws rushed through the Brussels system will help increase deportations from EU countries. They will build on the union’s asylum and migration pact reforms that dramatically cut the time it takes to rule on certain asylum cases.
Now you’re going to hear loud calls from EU governments for leeway to suspend the right of migrants arriving at their borders to claim asylum altogether, in “emergency” circumstances.
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The language and tone used will be measured, with nods made to respect for international law, but the end goal is something from the playbook of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump.
The European People’s Party (EPP) passed an internal motion this week calling for new EU laws to authorise the “refusal of entry or returns without individual asylum procedures, for illegal migrants used in a hybrid attack”.
The powerful centre-right grouping includes German chancellor Friedrich Merz, Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk and 10 other heads of government, as well as Fine Gael. The balance of power inside the EU ensures the group’s positions heavily influence policy coming from Brussels.
The EPP proposal would mean asylum seekers could be pushed back across whatever border they came from, without their claim for international protection being assessed.
It’s difficult to see how this wouldn’t undercut legal obligations to asylum seekers and the principle of non-refoulement, which requires a government to be sure it is not returning someone to a country where their life could be in danger.
The idea had quietly been gaining traction. Then the Ceuta crisis happened.
More than 70,000 people crossed from Morocco into the tiny Spanish exclave on the north African coast over two days, causing alarm about EU border security. The overwhelming majority returned to Morocco when it became apparent they would not reach mainland Spain.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said her officials will propose emergency rules allowing for “flexibility” in the event of similar mass movements, particularly where migration was “engineered and weaponised”.
There are no details of how this will work. “It’s still early enough days,” said one diplomat involved in preliminary discussions.
Member states were interested in something that could respond to “unexpected and unexplained surges”, the source said.
“There is obviously a tension between the right to asylum and 80,000 people appearing [on a border],” a diplomat from another EU state said.
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Finland and Poland have suspended the right to claim asylum at their land borders with Russia and its ally Belarus.
In both cases there was evidence Moscow was enticing migrants to travel from Africa and Asia, transporting them to the EU’s eastern borders and helping them across to put pressure on European democracies.
Watch out for politicians making the case that smuggling networks are similarly “instrumentalising” migration.
It is hard to get across the significance of what suspending the right to claim asylum on Europe’s southern borders could mean, even for a limited period after a surge in arrivals.
The 2015 migration crisis saw one million asylum seekers cross the Mediterranean and other treacherous sea routes. Many were fleeing the Syrian civil war and other conflicts.
If those circumstances were repeated today you would find international law and Europe’s moral conscience chucked out over the top of a raised drawbridge.
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A group of member states – Denmark, Greece, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands – are negotiating a side deal with Rwanda and other countries to host deportation sites, or “return hubs”.
Asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected would be sent to facilities outside the EU while the legally fraught (and likely years-long) process of arranging return to their home country took place.
The group, all hardliners on migration, hopes to finalise a deal by the end of this year to establish the first return hub.
Hard-right and far-right MEPs were roundly criticised for chanting “send them back” when the European Parliament approved toughened deportation rules this summer.
The political centre seems happy to use the number of people sent “back” as a yardstick to measure the success of its rightward pivot.
EU migration commissioner Magnus Brunner said deportations had surpassed the number of new asylum claims in Austria this year. Applications for refugee status in Germany, Sweden and Italy were way down. “It’s going in the right direction,” he remarked this week.
The numbers are certainly going one way, for now. Whether a crueler Europe less bothered about principles and international law is the right direction to head in, I’m not too sure.
