Frankfurter Rundschau
Commentary by Karl Kopp

August 12th, 2003

The Club of the Unwilling

European Asylum Policy Builds High Bulwark For Fortress Europe

„Placed within the framework of domestic politics, the program put forward by the current Italian EU-Presidency can be subsumed under three points: illegal immigration, organised crime and terrorism“. This is how the Italian Interior Minister Guiseppe Pisanu formulated the priorities of the current Italian government, evoking very negative associations. Associations commonly found among many interior ministers.

Most EU-states conceive of European immigration and asylum policy primarily in terms of combating immigration and the problem of refugees. While the development of a common system of asylum law in Europe is still not in sight, interior ministers have long ago agreed on policies that have effectively blocked access routes taken by refugees and immigrantes to Community territory. The very obligation to apply for entry visas as required in nearly 130 countries, including those countries where most refugees originate, effectively hinders the possibility of entering legally into Europe. In this sense, the inability of refugees to reach the territory of EU member states is not accidental, but rather part and parcel to these policies.

The closing of Europe’s outer borders leads in turn to an insidious and massive commercialization problem: creating lucrative opportunities for some, while many others suffer under inhuman and life-threatening conditions. This is corroborated by research carried out among those who were granted asylum status, showing that many only reached EU-territory because they turned to such „services“.

Merely over the last 18 months, the London Institute of Race Relations has documented the deaths of 742 refugees and immigrants occurring along the outer borders of the European Union. The real number of victims is, experts say, much higher. During this years World Refugee Day on the 20th of June, two hundred people paid tragically for their passage to Europe with their lives. Yet, despite this, the recent meeting of the various European Heads of State as well as Heads of Government in the Greek city of Thessaloniki have undertaken no steps to prevent such future tragic events. Indeed, quite the contrary. Nearly 400 million Euro in additional funding has been approved by the European Council for both the setting up of a European border defense agency as well as for establishing closer ties with transit countries and countries of origen, and thereby improving control over immigration and the passage of refugees.

Under the current Italian EU-Presidency, negotiations concerning repatriation agreements with Libya have been under way. In the not too distant future, European patrol boots shall be cruising off the coast of Libya and indeed directly entering Libyan ports in order to help prevent refugee boats from reaching the European Union. Italy has been working hard within Europe to help lift sanctions against Libya, a designated „rouge state“ so that it can provide Libya with much needed equipment to help control its borders. These EU measures have proven very effective: Over the last 10 years, the number of people seeking asylum in the EU has been reduced by 50%. Over 80% of the world’s 12 million refugees live currently under horrendous conditions in their own countries of origen. As long as EU-Member States continue to shirk their responsible to receive refugees, this can endanger the whole international system for the protection of refugees.

Without the bringing down of barriers and the establishment of secure and safe routes for refugees to reach Europe, even the most liberal asylum law will have no effect. An effective access to EU-territory as well as fair asylum proceedings are both crucial, if member states are to fulfill their international obligations as stipulated in the Geneva Convention on Refugees.

Rather than continuing to shift away their responsibility for taking on refugees, it is the duty of European Members States to help relieve the various countries of origen: chronically underfinanced, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) needs urgent financing to achieve the adequate protection of refugees in these areas. In addition, as proposed by the European Commission, a generous program for the receiving of refugees should be implemented at EU level.

This increased access and protection should not be implemented at the cost of individual asylum law in Europe. Indeed, only by creating European asylum law that is really worth its name, getting away from Fortress Europe and expanding legal immigration possibilities can the deaths of thousands now taking place on Europe’s borders be stopped.