#eu border force

[definitelyuseless]

reminded of that time i spilt stolen hot chocolate all over my jacket and then when i managed to go in the opposite direction to the town and got stopped the french border control sniffer dog kept jumping and barking at me and the guy was like were you smoking weed before or something and i was like no i swear ive never smoked anything in my life while patting the dog and i started turning out my pockets thinking (quite reasonably surely?) that if you get barked at by a sniffer dog then you get checked for drugs but hed said it totally causually and then was like dont bother towns that way

[bluastro-yellow]

unfortunately the EU keeps making cool regulations like holy shit they're forcing big messaging apps like whatsapp to send and recieve messages from other services. someone's doing that, fucking finally

[ironmanrecords]

Tour Management: Crossing the UK/EU Border - Transporting musical instruments or equipment

No more ATA Carnets for small artists carrying their own musical instruments and equipment. MU member and founder of ukeartswork, Ian Smith says: “This in very real terms is great news…..It’s a game changer for smaller bands and musicians who do not have the budget to pay for a carnet, when in fact they’re only taking over an instrument or two and an amp/mike.” Please note: This information and…

[niveditaabaidya]

Russia Claims 70 Attackers Killed In Cross Border Belgorod Raid. #ukrain...

[mesetacadre]

Something I'd consider to be a big step in any communist's theoretical and practical development is the true adoption of class politics, as the main vehicle of your discourse. There is no shame in not having done this, and I'd wager almost any communist had a period of time between consciously adopting marxist politics and this "true adoption" I'm referring to. Some never take this step as well.

Especially if you were already into politics, rejecting the political discourse of bourgeois democracy and substituting it for class politics is something that takes conscious effort. Take immigration as an example, this is a relevant subject of debate in the EU. The two main positions in normal (read: bourgeois) debate is to either make legal immigration harder and murder more migrants, or to relax controls and allow easier legal integration into whichever country they're in. Your intuition as a newer communist is probably to side with the second position, and that's understandable. But a consistently class conscious position is to first understand that those two broad sets of policies (hardening or relaxing the borders) both serve different factions of the same capitalist class at the same time:

Immigration, particularly from global south countries sacked by Europe, serves to increase the reserve army of labor that exerts a downwards pressure on wages, especially from these immigrants whose precarious situations force them to take the harshest jobs for miserable pay. So these two alternating policies of opening or closing up the border (but never closing it) serve to control the size of this reserve army when it's convenient, and once they're in Europe, to utilize this mass of low-wage workers. This is what is at the crux of the bourgeois debate over immigration in Europe, it's just coated in different paints, one nationalistic and one more "humanitarian". And this is what informs the actually marxist position in this particular debate; the rejection of any and all instrumentilzation of our fellow workers for the benefit of the capitalist class. There is no immigration policy within a capitalist framework that does not utilize the cheap labor brought by immigration.

If our goal as communists is to guide the working class to power, then we should be consequent in this and not lose ourselves in debates about which policy the managers of capitalism should adopt, it's to educate workers in our actual positions and utilize these debates as a jumping off point. This is what differentiates communists and opportunists who use workerist rethoric

[crimethinc]

As Egypt builds a five-meter-high concrete wall to seal off a five-square-kilometer area along the border with Gaza, we cannot help but think of the "no-go zone" on the border between Poland and Belarus, in which thousands of refugees have been enclosed over a period of years, trapped between countries and left to die.

https://crimethinc.com/NoBordersTeam

Since 2021, the government of Belarus has cynically used thousands of refugees displaced by wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, and elsewhere as a weapon with which to exert pressure on the European Union. EU governments have callously left these refugees in limbo between two militarized borders, establishing a restricted zone so that observers cannot see them die.

The majority of the inhabitants of Gaza were already refugees from other parts of Palestine. The world has already turned a blind eye while the Israeli government has set about ethnic cleansing in Gaza. If we permit them to complete that process by forcing the survivors into a containment zone across the Egyptian border, it will set a gruesome precedent that will be repeated elsewhere around the world.

[txttletale]

Hi! Do you think you could link me to some resources about the problems/ evils of the EU? Would love to find some but it's hard to know what's reliable when I have no base knowledge in this area + you seem very well informed :)

sure. let's start with what the EU does to its own member states--in 2009, the EU bailed the greek government out of severe debt on the condition that they establish brutal austerity measures, cutting public spending and welfare. these measures served to immiserate and destroy the lives of thousands of greek people:

Greek mortality has worsened significantly since the beginning of the century. In 2000, the death rate per 100,000 people was 944.5. By 2016, it had risen to 1174.9, with most of the increase taking place from 2010 onwards.

[forbes]

Since the implementation of the austerity programme, Greece has reduced its ratio of health-care expenditure to GDP to one of the lowest within the EU, with 50% less public hospital funding in 2015 than in 2009. This reduction has left hospitals with a deficit in basic supplies, while consumers are challenged by transient drug shortages.

[the lancet]

The homeless population is thought to have grown by 25 per cent since 2009, now numbering 20,000 people.

[oxfam]

the most brutal treatment, however, the EU of course reserves for migrants from the global south. the EU sets strict migration quotas and uses its member states as weapons against desperate people fleeing across the mediterranean. boats are prevented from landing, migrants that do make it to land are repelled with brutal violence, and refugees are deported back to countries where their lives are in lethal danger. these policies have led to many, many deaths--and the refugees and migrants who do survive are treating fucking inhumanely.

After a perilous journey across the desert, Abdulaziz was locked up in Triq al-Sikka, a grim prison in Tripoli, Libya. Why? Because the EU pays Libyan militias millions of euros to detain anyone deemed a possible migrant to Europe [...] A leaked EU internal memorandum in 2020 acknowledged that capturing migrants was now “a profitable business model” [...] in Triq al-Sikka and other detention centres, “acts of murder, enslavement, torture, rape and other inhumane acts are committed against migrants”, observed a damning UN report.

[the guardian]

Volunteers have logged more than 27,000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large ships capsize. These account for nearly 80% of all the entries.

[the guardian]

Refugees and asylum seekers were punched, slapped, beaten with truncheons, weapons, sticks or branches, by police or border guards who often removed their ID tags or badges, the committee said in its annual report. People on the move were subject to pushbacks, expulsion from European states, either by land or sea, without having asylum claims heard. Victims were also subject to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, such as having bullets fired close to their bodies while they lay on the ground, being pushed into rivers, sometimes with hands tied, or being forced to walk barefoot or even naked across a border.

[the guardian]

In September, Greece opened a refugee camp on the island of Samos that has been described as prison-like. The €38m (£32m) facility for 3,000 asylum seekers has military-grade fencing and CCTV to track people’s movements. Access is controlled by fingerprint, turnstiles and X-rays. A private security company and 50 uniformed officers monitor the camp. It is the first of five that Greece has planned; two more opened in November.

[the guardian]

i could go on. i could cite dozens more similarly brutal news stories about horrific mistreatment, or any of the dozens of people who have killed themselves in the custody of border police under horrific conditions. the EU is a murderous institution that does not care about the lives of refugees and migrants or about the lives of the citizens of any member state that is not pursuing a vicious enough neoliberal political program

[metamatar]

With a budget nearing $1 billion, Frontex is the EU’s best-funded government agency. [...] including by helping Libya’s EU-funded coast guard send hundreds of thousands of migrants back to be detained in Libya under conditions that amounted to torture and sexual slavery. In 2022, the agency’s director, Fabrice Leggeri, was forced out over a mountain of scandals, including covering up similar ​“pushback” deportations, which force migrants back across the border before they can apply for asylum.

[...] EU hopes to extend Frontex’s reach far beyond its territory, into sovereign African nations Europe once colonized, with no oversight mechanisms to safeguard against abuse. Initially, the EU even proposed granting immunity from prosecution to Frontex staff in West Africa. [...] 26 African countries have received taxpayer euros aimed at curbing migration through more than 400 discrete projects. Between 2015 and 2021, the EU invested $5.5 billion in such projects, with more than 80% of the funds coming from developmental and humanitarian aid coffers.

[...] Besides the surveillance tech the DNLT branches receive, migration data analysis systems have also been installed at each post, along with biometric fingerprinting and facial recognition systems. The stated aim is to create what eurocrats call an African IBM system: Integrated Border Management. [...] no European countries maintain databases with this level of biometric information.

[...] In Niger, for instance, the EU helped draft a law that criminalized virtually all movement in the north of the country, effectively making regional mobility illegal.

[the-cimmerians]

Imane Khelif, you may remember, is an Algerian boxer, one of two to be attacked during the Olympics as cheaters, as transsexual women, as men, and even as violent criminals — all of which was completely false. The two of them, the other being Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, were relentlessly demeaned, mocked, and threatened, based only on how each woman had been — retroactively — excluded from an international competition last year by the International Boxing Association. Famous anti-trans politicians and personalities piled on, with Donald Trump, JD Vance, Megyn Kelly, and JK Rowling being among the most recognizable. Possibly because Rowling singled out Khelif and not Lin, the harassment of Khelif was even worse than Lin faced, and many have been wondering when karma might finally land the author in court.

The answer is … not exactly soon, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. While in the process of winning gold under unprecedented pressure (as Lin did also), Khelif worked with a famous and well-regarded Paris lawyer, Nabil Boudi, to prepare a complaint about the harassment. It was filed on Friday, August 9, actually before the gold medal bout. Although many people in the English speaking world have misinterpreted this as a defamation lawsuit (Variety seems to have corrected the body of its article, but not its headline), in fact it’s a criminal complaint alleging “moral harassment,” and per Le Monde was filed with “the Paris correctional court's National Centre for Combating Online Hate.”

So what is ��moral harassment’ and what’s next?

Moral harassment is a criminal charge that is typically of lesser severity, on a relative par with stalking laws in the United States. As with stalking, there are more and less serious versions and the penalties can vary, but the most serious can be penalized by up to three years in jail and a fine of up to 45,000 Euros. Most violations carry lesser penalties. It is generally defined as repeated acts that have the object or effect of injuring the rights or dignity of a person, harming their health, or impairing certain other specific activities (like the ability to perform one's job).

The Centre for Combating Online Hate is a subunit of the Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH) and a recent creation. It is empowered to investigate all acts of moral harassment (amongst other hate crimes and crimes against dignity) against persons within France’s borders, even visitors like Khelif and even when the online perpetrators are unknown or outside of France’s jurisdiction.

A number of prominent people within France participated in the harassment of Khelif, including Eric Zemmour, a far-right racist politician who most recently ran for the Parliament of the European Union with the “far-right Reconquête! party.” Yes, that “Reconquête!” means just what you think it does. Members of Rassemblement National also racked up millions of views for their sexist and cissexist tweets targeting Khelif. All of these figures, and more, could face a civil fine plus forced restitution (which would not prevent Khelif from also suing for defamation) or criminal penalties if prosecuted and convicted.

The scope of the investigation, however, is certain to include the tweets of Rowling and others outside France who participated in what the complaint labeled a campaign of harassment both “massive” and “coordinated.” Speaking to Le Monde, Boudi said,

“The investigation will have to determine who was behind this misogynistic, racist, and sexist campaign, as well as those who fueled this digital lynching.”

French prosecutors have authority to request documents and other evidence from foreign governments, but outside the EU they have no ability to require cooperation, only to request it. (Inside the EU their ability to require cooperation is limited, but not non-existent.) While other European countries often have hate speech and harassment laws that overlap with those of France, speech protections are stronger in the UK than in mainland Europe and even stronger in the US. Criminal prosecution of — just as an example — JK Rowling would be possible but more difficult than a French prosecution of Zemmour and his co-harassers. In the USA, prosecution is right out.

So why bother pursuing evidence against Rowling, Musk, Trump, and Vance?

OCLCH, the office under which the online centre is organized, has as part of its mission the support of victims in their attempt to access justice. As a result of this mandate combined with the scope of France’s law against moral harassment, the prosecution investigative service is empowered to gather evidence relating to the treatment of persons within its borders even when charges can’t be filed. The benefit here is that evidence collected by the government at the government’s expense can then be used by private parties in defamation lawsuits, allowing victims to collect monetary judgements even when the prosecutors choose not to indict or a person using the internet to harass someone in France is beyond the reach of French law.

Boudi, with a background in both criminal and human rights laws, undoubtedly knows this and how to exploit it. While his client has achieved fame in winning a gold medal, it’s unlikely she has the money to pursue defamation claims around the world (and against the world’s richest respondents). While many people in the US may find it shocking that sending a tweet can be made a criminal offense in Europe, the tools that this allows the French government to use to provide equal access to justice for rich and poor will likely be crucial in the certainly forthcoming Khelif lawsuits against Rowling and her ilk in the English speaking world.

Don’t expect that defamation lawsuit too soon, however. Boudi will undoubtedly be working closely with prosecutors to keep on top of all the evidence that they gather and will want to give them time to work before bringing the civil law to bear.

[aristotels]

Why is Croatia so white? Why are there only 500-2,000 Jews in your whole country?

because croatia never held colonies. unlike big european forces. its a periphery country, and people keep emigrating from it. its poor. its inefficient. every day older people tell you to move out. immigrants dont want to stay here. eu is pissed at us because we arent doing more at borders, and our presidents reply was basically "well immigrants arent our issue, they dont want to stay here, they want to get to the western europe, so ummm we wont put military on the borders and kill people. sounds like a you problem".

croatia was always under the rule of another force, colonized and abused until it joined yugoslavia in 1945. it never had any kind of power, especially not in regards to africa or racial slavery. literally why would anyone move here? its more expensive than the rest of eu and the wages are 3x times lower, the language is complicated to learn, and without knowing it you cant really integrate properly.

surprisingly, if you look up some maps, youll find that exyu countries, including croatia, have the least bias towards black people in europe.

there is just no reason to move here. 🤷‍♀️

[soon-palestine]

The report, “Handcuffed like dangerous criminals”: Arbitrary detention and forced returns of Sudanese refugees in Egypt, reveals how Sudanese refugees are rounded up and unlawfully deported to Sudan – an active conflict zone ��� without due process or opportunity to claim asylum in flagrant violation of international law. Evidence indicates that thousands of Sudanese refugees have been arbitrarily arrested and subsequently collectively expelled with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimating that 3,000 people were deported to Sudan from Egypt in September 2023 alone.

“It is unfathomable that Sudanese women, men and children fleeing the armed conflict in their country and seeking safety across the border into Egypt, are being rounded up en masse and arbitrarily detained in deplorable and inhumane conditions before being unlawfully deported,” said Sara Hashash, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Egyptian authorities must immediately end this virulent campaign of mass arrests and collective expulsions. They must abide by their obligations under international human rights and refugee law to provide those fleeing the conflict in Sudan with safe and dignified passage to Egypt and unrestricted access to asylum procedures.”

For decades, Egypt was home to millions of Sudanese people studying, working, investing or receiving healthcare in the country, with Sudanese women and girls, as well as boys under 16, and men over 49 exempt from entry requirements. Around 500,000 Sudanese refugees are estimated to have fled to Egypt after the armed conflict erupted in Sudan in April 2023. However, in the following month, the Egyptian government introduced a visa entry requirement for all Sudanese nationals, leaving those fleeing with little choice but to escape through irregular border crossings.

The report documents in detail the ordeals of 27 Sudanese refugees who were arbitrarily arrested with about 260 others between October 2023 and March 2024 by Egypt’s Border Guard Forces operating under the Ministry of Defence, as well as police operating under the Ministry of Interior. It further documents how the authorities forcibly returned an estimated 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024 who were all denied the possibility to claim asylum, including by accessing UNHCR, or to challenge deportation decisions.

The report is based on interviews with detained refugees, their relatives, community leaders, lawyers and a medical professional; as well as a review of official statements and documents and audiovisual evidence. The Egyptian ministries of defence and interior did not respond to Amnesty International’s letters sharing its documentation and recommendations, while the Egyptian National Council of Human Rights, the national human rights institution, rejected the findings claiming that authorities comply by their international obligations.

The spike in mass arrests and expulsions came after a prime ministerial decree issued in August 2023 requiring foreign nationals in Egypt to regularize their status. This was accompanied by a rise in xenophobic and racist sentiments both online and in the media as well as statements by government officials criticizing the economic “burden” of hosting “millions” of refugees.

It has also taken place against the backdrop of increased EU cooperation with Egypt on migration and border control, despite the country’s grim human rights record and well-documented abuses against migrants and refugees.

In October 2022, the EU and Egypt signed an €80 million cooperation agreement, which included building up the capacity of Egyptian Border Guard Forces to curb irregular migration and human trafficking across Egypt’s border. The agreement purports to apply “rights-based, protection oriented and gender sensitive approaches”. Yet, Amnesty International’s new report documents the involvement of the Border Guard Forces in violations against Sudanese refugees.

A further aid and investment package, under which migration is a key pillar, was agreed in March 2024 as part of the newly announced strategic and comprehensive partnership between the EU and Egypt.

“By cooperating with Egypt in the migration field without rigorous human rights safeguards, the EU risks complicity in Egypt’s human rights violations. The EU must press Egyptian authorities to adopt concrete measures to protect refugees and migrants,” said Sara Hashash.

“The EU must also carry out rigorous human rights risk assessments before implementing any migration cooperation and put in place independent monitoring mechanisms with clear human rights benchmarks. Cooperation must be halted or suspended immediately if there are risks or reports of abuses.” Arbitrary arrests from streets and hospitals

The mass arrests have mostly taken place in Greater Cairo (encompassing Cairo and Giza) and in the border areas in the governorate of Aswan or inside Aswan city. In Cairo and Giza, police have conducted mass stops and identity checks targeting Black individuals, spreading fear within the refugee community leaving many afraid to leave their homes.

Following arrest by police in Aswan, Sudanese refugees are transferred to police stations or the Central Security Forces camp, an unofficial detention place, in Shallal region. Those arrested by Border Guard Forces in Aswan governorate are detained in makeshift detention facilities including warehouses inside a military site in Abu Simbel and a horse stable inside another military site near Nagaa Al Karur before being forced into buses and vans and driven to the Sudanese border.

Conditions in these detention facilities are cruel and inhumane, with overcrowding, lack of access to toilets and sanitation facilities, substandard and insufficient food, and denial of adequate healthcare.

Amnesty International also documented the arrest of at least 14 refugees from public hospitals in Aswan, where they were receiving treatment for serious injuries sustained during road accidents on their journeys from Sudan to Egypt. Authorities transferred them – against medical advice and before they had fully recovered – to detention, where they were forced to sleep on the ground after surgery.

Amira, a 32-year-old Sudanese woman who fled Khartoum with her mother was receiving treatment at an Aswan hospital following a car crash on 29 October 2023 that left her with fractures to the neck and the back. Nora, a relative of Amira, told the organization that the doctors told her she would need three months of medical care, but after just 18 days police transferred her to a police station in Aswan where she was forced to sleep on the ground for around 10 days. Cold and rat-infested detention facilities before collective expulsions

Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab reviewed photos and verified videos from January 2024 of women and children sitting on dirty floors amidst rubbish in a warehouse controlled by Egyptian border guards. The former detainees said the warehouses were infested by rats and pigeon nests and those detained endured cold nights with no appropriate clothing or blankets. Men’s warehouse conditions were overcrowded, with over a hundred men crammed together and limited access to overflowing toilets, forcing them to urinate in plastic bottles at night.

At least 11 children, some under the age of four, were detained with their mothers at these sites.

Israa, who has asthma, told Amnesty International that guards at the overcrowded horse stable near Nagaa Al Karur village ignored her request for an inhaler, even when she asked to buy one at her own expense.

After periods of detention ranging from a few days six weeks, police and Border Guard Forces handcuffed males and drove all detainees to the Qustul-Ashkeet border crossing and handed them to Sudanese authorities, without individualised assessment of risk of serious human rights violations if returned. None was given the opportunity to claim asylum even when they had registration appointments with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), asked to speak to UNHCR or pleaded not to be sent back. Such forced returns violate Egypt’s international obligations under human rights and refugee law, including the principle of non-refoulement.

Border Guard Forces expelled Ahmed, his wife and two-year-old child together with a group of roughly 200 detainees, on 26 February 2024, after detaining them for six days in Abu Simbel military site.

Since the conflict in Sudan began, Egyptian authorities have failed to provide statistics or acknowledge their policy of deportations.

[sflow-er]

In case you haven't heard, the Finnish Parliament just approved "controversial border law changes".

This refers to a bill that enables the border authorities to reject asylum applications at the border and even deport asylum seekers who already crossed the border, without issuing an official decision that could be appealed, in the event that Russia funnels migrants to the border to pressure Finland.

According to experts, the new law is in blatant breach of the human rights provisions of the Finnish constitution, superseding EU law, and international treaties. If the law is ever enforced, individual border guards may be sued for breaking EU laws, and Finland as a country may have to answer to the Court of Justice of the EU (which just fined Hungary last month for similar practices) and the European Court of Human Rights. The relevant parliamentary committees decided it could be passed anyway as an "emergency" exception that will be in force for one year.

In the subsequent press conference, the Prime Minister tried to reassure those who have sounded alarm bells by saying that Finland remains a country that respects the rule of law.

[niveditaabaidya]

Russian Forces Hit Toretsk. #ukraine #donetsk #russia #belgorad #border ...

[mariacallous]

In this 2024 “super election year,” a common concern across Europe and the United States has been the growing popularity and electoral successes of far-right movements and narratives. Though right-wing parties exhibit clear distinctions in different countries, they echo each other strongly in their nationalist orientation, their softness on Russia—and skepticism toward support for Ukraine—and their harsh anti-immigration stance. In the European Union (EU), one election after another has demonstrated the centrality of irregular migration and border security in public discussions and forced mainstream parties to take more restrictive approaches to calm fear and anxiety fueled by xenophobic, far-right rhetoric. The conflation between regular and irregular migration has also severely distorted the debate.

The results of the European Parliament election, France’s snap election, three German state elections, and the Austrian election all showed a strong rightward drift and signaled voters’ distrust in their national governments, confirming the notable shift in tone on migration in Europe toward a more securitized, hardline approach, even among mainstream parties. A look at the numbers indeed reveals a challenging situation as the European Union faces its highest number of asylum applications since 2016, which is straining resources for processing, accommodation, service provision, and thus integration.

In the aftermath of Europe’s so-called “refugee crisis” or “migrant crisis,” which began in 2015, EU member states tried and failed repeatedly to rethink and renew the union’s common policy, until a breakthrough this summer concluded the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. In the interim years, however, national governments made separate plans, implementing ad hoc measures to fortify their borders, restricting access to their asylum systems, and negotiating deals with non-EU states to limit movement.

This patchwork of policies did little to deter an increasing number of displaced persons worldwide from heading toward Europe in search of safety. It did, however, create divisions within and between member states, thus impeding progress on effective EU-wide responses. This political incoherence, together with fluctuating irregular arrivals, has since been exploited by populist parties, who propagate the sense that governments have lost control over their sovereignty and can no longer protect their populations.

To provide a better understanding of the complex situation Europe finds itself in today, this explainer aims to clarify the EU’s role in migration and asylum policy, why the issue became so controversial, how to understand recent developments in the migration space, and what opportunities the new pact offers.

How does migration and asylum policy in Europe work?

The free movement of goods, services, capital, and persons has been a fundamental pillar of the European idea, as enshrined in the 1957 Treaty of Rome that founded the political and economic community that today constitutes the European Union. Within the EU, national borders became almost fully invisible with the creation of the Schengen Area in 1995, which today includes 25 EU member states and four non-EU countries, collectively home to more than 450 million people.

When it comes to regular migration, the law stipulates that the EU has the authority to establish the conditions for entry and legal residence in member states, “including for family-reunification purposes, applicable to nationals of non-EU countries. Member States retain the right to set quotas for admitting individuals from non-EU countries seeking employment.” The fight against irregular immigration requires the EU to implement “an effective returns policy, in a manner consistent with fundamental rights.”

The EU’s Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was established in 1999 to enhance coordination across member states and streamline systems for processing asylum claims and supporting refugees granted protection. More specifically, the “Dublin Regulation” governs relations among member states and manifests that the country of an individual’s first arrival in the EU is responsible for asylum processing and refugee reception. For years, the Schengen regulation of free movement has made the Dublin system difficult to administer, as it unintentionally permitted asylum seekers to self-select destination countries—often based on linguistic abilities, families, perceived hospitality, and benefits. It has also placed disproportionate obligations on EU border countries at the forefront of irregular movements to Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean (Greece, Italy, and Spain) and the Balkans (Hungary, Croatia, and Bulgaria). Finally, a lack of enforcement to relocate applicants in instances of violation has sustained pressure on more “popular” destination countries and undermined authorities’ credibility.

Before this year’s overhaul of common EU policy, as reflected in the agreement on the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum—more on that below—member states at the national level and EU leadership implemented incremental measures to deter irregular arrivals. While some actions temporarily led to decreases in arrivals in certain member states, however, they failed to address the underlying drivers of displacement.

Most notable have been a series of EU deals with third countries in Europe’s neighborhood to improve border management and halt irregular departures toward the EU, in exchange for the provision of financial support. A 2016 agreement with Turkey became a model for future EU deals with North African and Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, Egypt, Mauritania, and Tunisia. Italy, on its own, concluded a memorandum of understanding with Libya in 2017, which pledged millions of euros in assistance to enhance the maritime surveillance capacities of the Libyan Coast Guard. In exchange, Libyan authorities would prevent people from departing the Northern African country and intercept irregular migrants at sea to return and detain them in Libya. Yet these “migration partnerships” have been severely criticized by humanitarian groups and lawmakers alike, who express concerns about how the policy legitimizes and increases Europe’s dependency on autocratic regimes, disregards human rights, and threatens migrants’ physical safety. A recent investigative report by The Washington Post and Lighthouse Reports further revealed that local authorities, aided by EU funding and equipment, have violated human rights and asylum law. Several research studies have further criticized the migration deals’ lack of effectiveness.

Why is migration so controversial?

When over 1.2 million people entered the EU in 2015 to claim asylum under international law, most of whom were Syrian refugees fleeing civil war, the CEAS and the Dublin Regulation quickly proved dysfunctional and ineffective in absorbing the shock to European processing and integration systems. The situation sparked tensions among frontline countries—which were challenged by the arrival of 1,216,860 and 1,166,815 asylum seekers at their borders in 2015 and 2016, respectively—and countries further inward, which in many cases resisted migrant transfers to share responsibility and restricted access to their asylum systems under fear of adverse domestic consequences. Municipalities in major destination countries were overwhelmed by the speed and scale of arrivals and faced difficulties mustering enough resources for housing, financial support, and integration of newcomers in their local communities.

Despite agreements by the European Council to relocate up to 160,000 asylum seekers from frontline countries Italy and Greece to other member states to reduce pressures on the Italian and Greek asylum systems, fewer than 12,000 relocations were realized by the end of 2016. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for instance, refused orders from Brussels to take in 1,294 asylum seekers and instead organized a national referendum on whether the EU should have the authority to “mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary,” which he used to validate his harsh domestic anti-immigrant approach. Stoking fears of a Muslim “invasion” and claiming his country was the “last Christian-conservative bastion of the Western world,” Orbán’s approach also included the construction of fences at Hungary’s southern borders, changing asylum laws to speed up processing and reduce protections, and introducing “transit zones” at Hungary’s border with Serbia, which have been condemned as “container prisons” surrounded by barbed wires.

In stark contrast, German Chancellor Angela Merkel valiantly declared “Wir schaffen das!” (“We can do it!”) and decided to keep her country’s borders open, leading to the arrival of around 1.2 million asylum seekers in Germany between 2015 and 2016. The real pressure on municipalities and the sense of chaos and disorder, however, benefitted the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which entered the federal parliament for the first time in 2017 and became the largest opposition party.

Over the years, asylum seekers have become convenient scapegoats for disillusioned and frustrated Europeans who have seen their societies change and economies tumble because of successive external shocks, from climate change and a global health crisis to rapid technological change and a disruption of Europe’s decades-old security order. In this time of great uncertainty, a rights-based vision of migration and asylum has become a perceived political vulnerability, replaced with a security approach stressing law and order.

In a 2021 effort led by Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s National Rally party, 16 right-wing parties from across Europe—including the governing parties of Hungary, Italy, and Poland at the time—declared their opposition to a “European Superstate” allegedly being created by “radical forces” within the EU. They objected to a perceived “cultural, religious transformation and ultimately nationless construction of Europe” and instead pressed for “respect for the culture and history of European states” and “respect for Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage.” Uniting diverse national political actors, their communique demonstrates the focus on national identity and Christian values that the far right has portrayed as being under threat because of the EU’s migration policy. Hence, the EU finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place: its policy is weaponized by right-wing populists as too weak, and it is denounced by nongovernmental organizations and observers as not respecting its own values.

How does the new Pact on Migration and Asylum address prior shortcomings?

A sound European policy that attempts to better manage the drivers of irregular migration in countries of origin and centers on the collaboration of all EU member states is needed to handle rising global displacement trends. The passage of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum in May 2024 offers a chance to transform the EU’s current governing framework if implemented effectively by the time the new legislation takes force in 2026. It represents the first major agreement on migration and asylum policy in over a decade, intended to accelerate procedures and enhance cooperation and solidarity between member states.

Framed by the European Commission as a “fair and firm” approach, the new legislation consists of 10 major reform proposals that cement Europe’s policy shift to fortify borders, enhance scrutiny in asylum processing, double down on deporting rejected applicants, and partner with non-EU states of origin and transit to limit irregular arrivals. A key aspect is a new accelerated procedure for asylum applicants from countries with a low recognition rate, whose probability of getting their asylum application request granted is low. The mechanism will take a maximum of 12 weeks (about three months) and permits fast-track processing at EU external borders, during which migrants, including families and children, will stay in collective detention-like facilities. Further, the pact aims to correct the failures of the Dublin Regulation through a new solidarity system, which obliges all member states to share responsibility, either by receiving up to 30,000 asylum applicants per year, paying a fee of 20,000 euros per asylum applicant to assist hosting countries or contributing other resources.

Critics have pointed out, however, that the focus on securitizing EU borders as opposed to addressing humanitarian implications is unlikely to reduce arrival numbers and increases the risks of human rights violations. The European Union must satisfy its obligations under international law to ensure fast-track processing facilities satisfy human rights standards and that all asylum claims are evaluated fairly, as required by the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. These principles should apply equally to EU-funded migration management projects in Europe’s neighborhood.

As the European Union enters a new governing cycle—following the European Parliament election in June and with a new college of commissioners later this fall—it has an opportunity to prioritize a new common migration and asylum policy and take functional steps to achieve a more balanced and orderly system among member states, which provides for the dignity, safety, and rights of those seeking international protection. The number of displaced people globally has increased consistently over the past 12 years and is expected to have exceeded 120 million persons in 2024. However, it is imperative to remember that 75% of displaced persons remain in low- and middle-income countries in the “Global South,” which often struggle with political, economic, and social insecurity themselves. As war continues in Ukraine, conflicts escalate in the Middle East, political instability grows across sub-Saharan Africa, and the secondary effects of climate change jeopardize people’s lives and livelihoods, the EU will be forced to grapple with irregular migration for the foreseeable future.

The nationalities of first-time asylum applicants in the European Union in recent years demonstrate the global nature of migration today. In 2023, for instance, Syrians (183,250), Afghans (100,985), Turks (89,985), Venezuelans (67,085), and Colombians (62,015) represented the five largest nationalities among first-time asylum applicants in the EU. Certainly, contemporary migration flows to Europe are mixed and not all persons applying for asylum fall into the protected categories of the Geneva Convention.

It is also true, however, that many EU countries are changing demographically as birth rates fall across developed economies and are experiencing severe shortages of workers across professional and blue-collar sectors, threatening future social and economic vitality and stability. Immigration, therefore, offers an enormous benefit for Europe to counteract downward demographic and economic trends. Beyond the pact, leaders should dedicate greater efforts to expand legal pathways at the national level for people not considered refugees under international law, but who desperately seek greater economic opportunity and are eager to contribute meaningfully to host societies.

Recent political developments in the European migration space

The yearslong EU effort to agree to a set of clear, cohesive policies as represented by the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, however, appears to be undercut by a recent shift in tone on migration across the bloc. National, xenophobic rhetoric is no longer contained to the fringes of the political spectrum across the European Union. Anti-immigrant sentiment today features dominantly in public debates, after years of far-right populists amplifying cultural anxieties and accusing governments of having lost control of their sovereign borders. Right-wing leaders, from Hungary’s “illiberal democrat” Viktor Orbán to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in a 20th-century fascist movement, have increasingly shaped the direction at the EU level toward a more restrictive approach focused on border security and a defense of European culture and values.  

Recent electoral outcomes across the EU revealing strong support for far-right parties have sent shockwaves across the continent. Following June’s European Parliament election, parties to the right of the European People’s Party—the center-right Christian Democrats—now hold over one-quarter of seats in the EU’s lower legislature (187 out of 720). The vote produced a snap election in France, from which a center-left coalition barely emerged ahead of the far right. In Germany, the extremist AfD emerged from the European vote as the second strongest party, ahead of all three governing coalition parties. In three recent regional elections in eastern Germany, the AfD and the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht—a new party on the extreme left founded in January 2024 that has also adopted a harsh anti-immigration stance—fanned the flames of fear and xenophobia and soared to a combined 42%-49%, both landing among the top three strongest parties in each state. Finally, Austria’s September election saw the far-right Freedom Party become as the strongest new parliamentary grouping, whose campaign included promises of “remigration” as part of a larger theme to create a “Fortress Austria.”

In response to these volatile political trends, member states—including many led by centrist governments—are once again turning to reactive, unilateral measures to contain the far right by way of a more restrictive stance on migration and asylum.

Most notably, Germany’s center-left government has drastically shifted its tone on combating irregular migration and enhancing domestic security after two fatal knife assaults occurred in Germany this summer, whose perpetrators turned out to be foreign nationals. In a stark break with Merkel’s hopeful and humanitarian spirit, the government expanded temporary controls to include all German borders—defying the Schengen regulation—imposed stricter rules on benefits and protected status for asylum seekers, and even began deportations of convicted Afghans to Afghanistan. Not only are these actions inconsistent with the principle of EU solidarity and grounds for heightened tensions with Germany’s neighbors, but the German police union has deemed the border checks largely ineffective, particularly as people claiming asylum can still enter.

Emboldened by the German turn on the issue, Orbán most recently threatened to send buses of migrants to Brussels—copying his conservative MAGA friends in the United States. The new French government, led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier, has also vowed to crack down on irregular entries and strengthen controls at France’s borders. In Poland, Prime Minister and former President of the European Council Donald Tusk announced a temporary suspension of the right to seek asylum for irregular migrants entering through the Polish-Belarusian border, claiming that Russia and Belarus were “weaponizing” migrants in attempts to destabilize the EU. The policy could violate the right to non-refoulement—which protects individuals from being returned to a country under international human rights law—and set a perilous precedent for other member states trying to restrict irregular entries.

In a novel move, Meloni concluded a new “partnership” with Albania—a non-EU country—under which Italy will send up to 36,000 asylum applicants per year to process their claims externally. Though the policy only applies to adult male individuals intercepted in international waters prior to arrival at Italian shores, several attempted transfers of migrants to Albanian processing centers have already been invalidated by an Italian court. Together with six other EU countries, Meloni has also tried to advance normalization with the Assad regime in Syria, in part to reconsider the possibility of returning Syrian refugees to the war-torn country.

At the October 2024 European Council summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, and leaders of EU member states gathered to discuss a full agenda of topics in which migration featured prominently. In a letter setting the tone for the summit, von der Leyen stressed to European leaders the centrality of expanding third-country partnerships like those concluded with Turkey and countries in North Africa and the Middle East, to improve processes of return and counter the “weaponization” of migrants by Russia, Belarus, and others attempting to instigate political instability in Europe. During the meetings, the agreement between Italy and Albania was lauded as a model for the EU to emulate, confirming the shift toward externalization that has gained traction in Europe.

Notably absent from the summit communique was any mention of the new common EU Pact on Migration and Asylum or strategies for its timely and comprehensive implementation. The recent uncoordinated measures by EU members and their preoccupation with “weaponization,” third-country deals, and “return hubs” at the EU level are unlikely to provide the sense of reassurance, cohesion, and opportunity that people expect of their national and European leaders.