The end of harmonizing EU asylum law?
Press Release
3.12.2010
Christian Democrats all over Europe buckle to rightist populism - PRO ASYL: EU to be reduced to an economic community without values
Christian Democrat Interior Ministers and Members of the European Parliament have jointly proposed to postpone the harmonization of EU asylum law indefinitely. PRO ASYL criticizes this proposal for being an attack on Europe’s core values and an accommodation to rightist populism. Prominent German and Austrian politicians are among the initiators of the anti-harmonization campaign.
The accompanying comment by Sweden’s Minister for Migration Tobias Billström says that because of the financial and economic crises no one is willing to invest time and money in a project such as harmonization any more. In a first reaction, Marei Pelzer of PRO ASYL deems this a straight out assault on Europe: “The crisis becomes an excuse to reduce Europe to an economic community, which only attends to its humanitarian responsibilities whenever the economic situation allows for it.”
Like this, policies regarding refugees are being reduced to a deplorable state: EU Commissioner Malmström bargains with Libya and Turkey about an agreement on migration, not taking human rights implications into account. Italy already returns refugees to Libya and there is no intervention by the European Commission. Refugees from Iran, Iraq and Syria are threatened by deportation from Greece to Turkey and a potential chain-refoulement to the countries they fled. The current EU policy towards refugees is to seal-off the borders and to give Member States a free hand, even turning a blind eye to violations of fundamental norms.
The European Commission’s proposals towards further harmonization would represent a step in the right direction, however small that step may be. They foresee further standardization of procedures, of legal protection for refugees and of reception conditions. Right now the EU is a patch-work of national practices which leads to extremely different recognition-rates in different EU Member States for refugees of the same origin. Safe-guards and living conditions for refugees in the border states of Europe, hosting the largest number of new comers, are deplorable.
