Listening to the shifting debate on asylum policy in the European Union over the last two years, you would start to wonder when values and respect for international law became optional.
Few topics have been as politically charged over the last decade. Since the “crisis” of 2015 when significantly more migrants and asylum seekers started making the journey to Europe, many fleeing war, persecution or poverty, governments have struggled to agree on a common response.
They have begun to coalesce around one: harder borders, tough talk and more deportations.
Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has spent years flouting the bloc’s laws on asylum policy, has been delighted to see many governments shift rightward.
The European centre ground has not lurched all the way over to his extreme anti-immigrant viewpoint, but now probably sits a lot closer to Denmark’s hardline stance.
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The Danish government, once a traditional outlier on migration, can credibly claim to represent something close to the majority view within the EU. It has stayed where it is, but more than a dozen other EU states have followed it to the right.
The EU’s 27 justice ministers this week backed controversial measures that would have been shot down as unpalatable only a short time ago.
Governments gave each other licence to set up deportation sites outside of EU borders, known as “return hubs”, where asylum seekers whose claims for protection had been rejected could be sent while the complicated process of transporting them back to their home country was arranged.
This builds on EU-wide reforms kicking in this June toughening up asylum policy, allowing states to detain asylum seekers at their borders and to fast-track deportations.
In some cases that will involve decisions and appeals being settled on asylum claims within 12 weeks. That’s an incredibly short time frame. There will be questions about applicants’ ability to avail of legal advice and prepare their case properly.
Under a fast-track procedure some asylum seekers will be treated as if they have not entered Ireland’s jurisdiction, known as being given “leave to land”. That will make it easier for the State to deport them should their claim for asylum be rejected.
The principle of non-refoulement prohibits states sending asylum seekers back to a place where they might be at risk of harm or persecution. Planned deportation hubs could threaten European states’ adherence to that bedrock of international asylum law.
The Dutch government is exploring setting up deportation sites in Uganda. Italy has been trying something similar in Albania.
It will be interesting to see how governments will satisfy themselves that the host countries paid to run these hubs won’t move people onwards into possible danger.
The deal agreed by justice ministers in Brussels was described as Europe putting its house “in order” by Magnus Brunner, EU commissioner for migration. “We are in the middle of a turning point,” he said.
There was a time not too long ago when the European Commission would be criticising the same proposals as trampling on obligations to asylum seekers.
Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing Spanish government seems to be the lone voice of Europe’s conscience on this one.
His administration publicly expressed concerns about how long people might be detained in “return” hubs and whether these could comply with international law. “We defend the values of the European Union,” Spain’s interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Monday.
On the same day, I asked Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan whether he felt Ireland’s position on migration had moved rightward.
“No, I don’t believe so. I think what I’ve sought to do as Minister is to ensure that we have a rules-based system,” he said.
Ireland was “receptive” to refugees fleeing war and persecution, but there had to be public confidence there were consequences for those whose asylum claims were rejected, he said.
Recent negotiations also settled a complex aspect of the EU asylum pact to better share out the burden that falls on the union’s frontline states.
Assessments by the commission deemed Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Greece as qualifying for help from other EU states. That will take the form of offers to resettle asylum seekers from those countries or make financial contributions to the governments most under pressure.
Ireland has opted to make a financial contribution of €9.2 million to help those four Mediterranean states cope. Assessments of migratory pressure will take place annually.
In practice few asylum seekers will be relocated from one EU state to another. Instead, for example, Germany might accept responsibility for asylum seekers in its territory, who entered Europe via Italy or Greece and legally could be returned there to have their cases processed. Financial contributions making up the difference will be mandatory.
That is a level of solidarity between EU member states that has not been seen before on migration. Compassion for people who have fled across treacherous seas seeking a better life in Europe is in shorter supply.
