Criticism of Europe’s asylum policy
The European Union (EU) took in over 1 million refugees in 2023. The notorious Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, which was planned for 2,800 people, became a symbol of the bloc’s failed refugee policy: Up to 20,000 men, women and children were housed there, living in catastrophic hygiene and health conditions.
The prevention of such situations must be the top priority, said migration researcher Franck Duvell from the University of Osnabrück at the presentation of the study “Global Refugee Report” (Report globale Flucht 2024) in Berlin this week. However, Duvell pointed out that still, people in many camps still live in “atrocious conditions.”
The Global Refugee Report is compiled annually by the project “Flight and Refugee Research” made up of migration researchers from the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Osnabrück, the International Center for Conflict Studies in Bonn and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), a think tank for sustainable development policy.
This year’s report looks at the impact of the reformed Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which will see asylum seekers held up and registered at the EU’s external borders. Asylum seekers will have to wait up to 12 weeks in reception camps before a decision is made on their asylum application.
During that time they will be housed in collective accommodation and asylum seekers for up to 30,000 individuals. Those who come from a country from which only an average of 20% of applicants have been granted asylum before, will be subjected to an accelerated border procedure with limited rights of appeal and deported directly in the event of rejection. This also applies to families with children. Exceptions are only planned for minors traveling alone. Duvell ‘s co-researcher, Petra Bendel from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, expressed her concern that those camps will be overcrowded and conditions inhumane, especially for children and families.
“Abuse prevails in numerous reception facilities at the EU’s external borders. Whether this will develop into efficient procedures will have to be seen in practice,” she said. Duvell is critical of treaties with non-EU states aimed at getting them to take in asylum seekers from the EU. In 2023, for example, European leaders signed such an agreement with Tunisia, offering the North African country’s leaders over 100 million euros for “border management,” and nearly 1 billion euros in financial support to battle the country’s economic crisis. In July, there were reports of Tunisian security forces rounding up hundreds of refugees bound for Europe and transporting them to the country’s desert border area with Libya, where they were abandoned without access to food, water or shelter.
Duvell warned that agreements with authoritarian states undermine democratization processes in these countries. “Europe is making itself highly dependent on despots.”
The researchers expressed both relief and concern about the way the EU deals with war refugees from Ukraine. Duvell said Russia’s attack on its neighboring country has triggered the largest refugee movement since World War II, But the situation could get even worse.
“If Russia is not prevented from escalating the war further or even winning, we in the West would actually have to reckon with millions more refugees,” he said.
This article was provided by Deutsche Welle