_shutterstock_save_nature_and_wildlife__xlarge.jpg "A new migrant wave on the horizon?")
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A new migrant wave on the horizon?
The European Union is bracing for a tsunami of migrant arrivals triggered by the latest conflict in the Middle East, which began in late February.
Against a backdrop of massive internal displacements in countries in the region, particularly Iran and Lebanon, the bloc is rolling up its sleeves and battening down the hatches.
Keep out!
While arrivals have not yet substantially increased, member states are keen to avoid a repeat of the massive flows of 2015, when more than a million irregular arrivals were registered in the EU in the wake of the war in Syria.
On the sidelines of last week’s summit, the Danish and Italian prime ministers Mette Frederiksen and Giorgia Meloni urged Europe to steel itself. In a joint letter addressed to the leaders of the European Council, the European Commission and member states, they called for an immediate strengthening of the bloc’s external borders and for rapid and sufficient support to be provided to so-called ‘host countries’ in the Middle East. They also urged the Commission to explore the introduction of an “emergency brake” that could be activated in the face of sudden, large-scale migration movements, as Radio România reports.
There is certainly cause for concern, says the previous director general of the International Organization for Migration, António Vitorino, to Portuguese member station Renascença. Vitorino predicts that dealing with the humanitarian fallout of this latest crisis is going to be challenging in many ways – not least from a financial perspective.
António Vitorino, Former Director General of the IOM (in Portuguese):
“At the moment, it is estimated that less than 20 per cent of the United Nations’ total humanitarian aid budget has actually been funded. In other words, there isn’t much wriggle room.”
On this note, on 16 March, the Commission announced the allocation of a 458-million-euro humanitarian package to the Middle East.
Brussels has also called on member states to step up ‘migration diplomacy’ with countries in the direct vicinity of the conflict – countries including Turkey, Lebanon and Pakistan – so as to stabilise refugee populations and prevent irregular departures. Indeed, this is one of the priorities of the five-year strategy the Brussels executive presented earlier this year – a strategy that focuses on tightening both the borders and the legal framework for returns.
The first of these objectives will be met through border screening, a new regulation on which is expected to come into full force in June. However, the current instability has prompted EU leaders to prepare a ‘stress test’ of these rules, using the new screening protocols to prevent mass arrivals.
As regards the second objective – the tightening of the legal framework on returns – discussions have focused on speeding up the ‘return regulation’, allowing for the swifter removal of those whose applications for asylum have been unsuccessful.
On Thursday (26 March), the European Parliament voted to progress this regulation to the next stage of the legislative process, despite attempts by left-wing lawmakers to block the plan. Trilogue talks will now begin between the three main EU institutions.
Bulgarian EPP member Emil Radev tells our colleagues at BNR why he considers the regulation so important. He begins by citing the fact that only a minority of people with removal orders actually leave the EU.
Emil Radev, Member of the European Parliament – EPP, Bulgaria (in Bulgarian):
“This means that people who have no right to stay are, in practice, staying, and such a system cannot function because their numbers grow every year. This undermines trust in the rules and creates a sense of lack of control in a number of EU member states, particularly in Western and Northern Europe.”
This said, the return regulation remains one of the most controversial pieces of the bloc’s new migration and asylum framework, partly because it paves the way for new offshore migrant-detention centres that are, by their very nature, difficult to monitor. Turkey and Uganda are being touted to host such centres, for example.
Radev is clearly a strong proponent of this policy.
Emil Radev, Member of the European Parliament – EPP, Bulgaria (in Bulgarian):
“You may recall that a few years ago, Italy established [two such centres] in Albania and transferred some irregular migrants there. But unfortunately the Italian court, citing a lack of any legal basis for establishing such centres, ordered them to be closed. This regulation now makes this possible, and it is a regulation that will apply at the European level. We won’t have to wait for member states to transpose these measures into their legislation; on the contrary, it will have direct effect. So this is a very important mechanism, and one that complements the Migration Pact, which enters into force in July. This is the final piece in the puzzle that will allow us to control illegal migration in an entirely lawful manner.”
Indeed, the Italy-Albania Protocol, signed in November 2023, does theoretically work along similar lines, although from an earlier stage in the asylum process than the somewhat self-explanatory ‘return hubs’ are intended to be used. Despite being blocked by the European Court of Justice in August, Italy has continued to send migrants to its centres in Albania and hopes to legitimise the practice within the EU’s evolving regulatory framework.
But in António Vitorino’s view, this idea as a whole is doomed to failure – not to mention questionable from a humanitarian perspective.
António Vitorino, Former Director General of the IOM (in Portuguese):
“I would say good luck to them. This will be an enormously complex logistical process, very difficult to manage, and the results are likely to be extremely limited. I’m just being pragmatic – I mean, what’s the point? We shouldn’t have to pay the price of condemnation for distancing ourselves from the 1951 Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law for a policy that is clearly going to be a flop.”
Let’s not be so defeatist, counters MEP Radev.
Emil Radev, Member of the European Parliament – EPP, Bulgaria (in Bulgarian):
“We are at a decisive moment. This European Parliament plenary session is key to the next steps for this regulation, which will allow us to change this reality and ensure that returns are truly 100-per-cent effective – so that these people can be expelled from the EU because, aside from having no rights, they often pose a criminal threat, a terrorist threat, and a burden on social welfare systems.”
Fact-checking migration
In cooperation with the Euranet Plus network, fact-checker Linda Givetash delved into a few facts and figures surrounding the issue of migration. One thing that came out of her research is that more and more unsuccessful asylum seekers are gradually starting to be returned to their home countries. And the new returns regulation is likely to tip the balance further in this direction.
She also fact-checked the claim that immigrants are driving up Europe’s crime rates.
Linda Givetash, Euranet Plus Fact-Checker (in English) 10:
“There is no concrete evidence to support the claim that immigration leads to more crime. Foreign nationals did account for one in five prisoners in the EU in 2023, according to Eurostat. But the proportion varies dramatically between EU countries, according to UN data. So, for example, in Austria, foreign nationals outnumbered the country’s own citizens in prisons in 2023, accounting for more than half of the prison population. But the opposite was true in France, which had nearly 19,000 foreign nationals imprisoned compared to over 57,000 French citizens.”
What about in Germany, where foreign-born people make up almost 20 per cent of the population?
Linda Givetash, Euranet Plus Fact-Checker (in English) 11:
“A December crime report by the government stated that migrants accounted for just 9 per cent of all suspects in 2024. The number of immigrants who themselves became victims of crime, however, rose by 5.2 per cent compared to the previous year.”
The situation is not at all as clear-cut as some would like to suggest, then. But in places where there are higher crime rates among immigrants, are there any other factors at play that could help to explain this?
Linda Givetash, Euranet Plus Fact-Checker (in English) 12:
“Another explanation of higher criminality among immigrants are social and demographic factors, according to a French justice observatory. Being young and a man are characteristics systematically associated with higher crime levels, as is economic insecurity. It also noted that judicial institutions tend to be more severe towards immigrants.”
And many migrants to the EU are young men from economically precarious backgrounds, who come here in the hope of finding work.