Refugee discussions in the EU stumble along slowly
And the US chimes in with yet another bad asylum policy
Germany’s Chancellor in a speech to the European Parliament this week emphasized the need for a new EU policy on immigrants and refugees:
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday urged EU partners to work "with all our strength" on completing a reform of the bloc's migration rules before next year's European election, while also calling for a swift conclusion of new trade deals.
Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the occasion of Europe Day on May 9, Scholz lauded a recent agreement that lawmakers had reached, which revises the EU's asylum and migration pact. He "urgently" advocated that all EU institutions now reach a joint agreement before the European Parliament's election in spring next year.1
Judith Kohlenberger is an Austrian expert on immigration and refugee issues. I heard her comment in a recent TV interview that in Austria, the immigration and asylum policies actually function well at the moment. But that the political rhetoric around the issue seems remarkably decoupled from the realities of both the policy and the real immigration situation.
(One fairly strange feature of the current discussion is how Ukrainian refugee tend to be bracketed out of the public discussion, even though the number of immigrants entering the EU from Ukraine so far in 2022-23 - around five million at least2 - is far greater than from all other countries combined.)
Gerald Knaus, head of the European Stability Inisiative (ESI), in a recent book said much the same thing. Commenting on the “era” of the former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (2018-2021), he notes that if one took the political rhetoric of Kurz seriously, one would also have to completely< reject the policy his government actually was following.
The distinctiveness of Austria in recent years lies in the fact that the rulers spoke like [Hungary’s far-right Prime Minster] Viktor Orbán - “the goal is zero irregular migration”, “that won’t happen without ugly pictures [on the border],” [both Kurz quotes]. At the same time, all relevant institutions acted in accord with applicable law. And so it came [in Austria] to the world's highest recognition numbers of refugees in these years.3
The rule of law continued to function well, in other words, despite the xenophobic agitation by the Chancellor. At least when it came to handling of refugees. (How well the Austrian laws against governmental corruption functioned in those years is another topic!)
Kohlenberger commented this week on Twitter4 in reference to the "refugee summit" in Germany between the federal and state (Länder) governments:
1) The asylum debates of recent years, as well as today’s Refugee Summit, are characterized by two basic constants: refusal of responsibility and pushing it onto others: onto Brussels, into third countries - just not here by us. Motto: Out of sight, out of mind.
2) The dehumanizing of the asylum-seekers, through word (“flood”, “wave”, storm”) and action. Only that allows universal basic rights to be restricted: [But] Everyone has the right to a fair process, except for those who have to be content with processes on the border and imprisonment.
From that we can also draw two concrete options for action to counter [the dehumanizing]: consistent assumption of responsibility and consistent humanizing of asylum seekers. [my emphasis]
This results in a public conversation that is to a large degree poisoned. As Kohlenberger told the ORF news agency:
Here [in Austria] there is often a lack of political will to allow asylum seekers to work more quickly or to integrate them more easily, she says. There are plenty of concepts and tried-and-tested examples from other countries. In Austria, a very negative migration discourse generally dominates, according to Kohlenberger. Immigration is often portrayed as a "chronic crisis" with only negative effects.5 [my emphasis]
Politicians tend to talk about refugee policy in the main framework of: How do we keep them out of our country?
So the public discussion on refugee policy is stunted, to put it mildly. To talk meaningfully about changes in policy, you have to start with the fact that EU immigration policy is legally controlling over the national policies. The Czech Republic, for instance, can’t control or make regulations on its own for the outer borders of the EU. But it can be and is affected by the EU policies.
So to actually talk about immigration policy, you have to talk about things like: the Dublin Regulation; the Schengen Agreement; the international Geneva Refugee Convention; negotiations among the EU member states over burden sharing; revising visa regulations to accommodate EU demand for labor; working out repatriation agreements with countries of origins for asylum-seekers whose asylum applications are declined.
Those are seemingly complex or even abstract-sounding issues. But they stay that way because political leaders so often talk about refugee issues primarily in nationalistic terms that basically come down to various forms of, “How do we keep the refugees out?”
As Maximilian Pichl writes:
For more than thirty years, European asylum and migration policy has been characterized by the principle of externalization: EU member states formally recognize the fundamental right to asylum, but in practice pursue a strategy in which border protection and refugee intake are outsourced to third countries. The aim is to ensure that as few asylum seekers as possible enter the EU. Some governments, such as the volkish Fidesz in Hungary [the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán], want to prevent refugee-migration at all costs. Since the mid-2000s, the border agency Frontex, which is uncontrollable in practice, has been preparing risk analyses, supporting EU member states in agreements with third countries, carrying out operations at the borders, organizing deportations and involving itself in illegal pushbacks. At the same time, individual EU member states have repeatedly tried to negotiate bilateral agreements with third countries.6 [my emphasis]
It’s not that it is illegal or inherently wrong in having third states, i.e., states outside the EU, process asylum claims on behalf of the EU. But for that to function properly and legally, there have to be both practical visa regimes in place and also clear agreements with the asylum-seekers’ countries of origin on accepting returns of those not approved for asylum in the EU. As Gerald Knaus has been patiently explaining for years.
Kohlenberger wrote last month about how lawless behavior by EU outer-border states like Hungary and Poland tends to undermine the rule of law in other EU countries, as well:
The fact that what is happening at the EU's external borders cannot happen to us in Austria is therefore a pure chimera that lulls us into a (false) sense of security. It’s not coincidental that in countries where the rights of those seeking protection are trampled underfoot, there is also a rule of law crisis at another level. In Hungary, in addition to refugee rights, the independence of the media and the judiciary is being curtailed, and in Poland the reproductive rights of women. [So is the independence of Polish justice!] It is therefore all our interest uphold and comply with the right to asylum, even if we [Austrians] are (still) on the side of the receiving countries. The fact that the latter can change all too quickly is illustrated by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. If Vladimir Putin's bombs were to fall just a few hundred kilometers further west, it would be us who would be dependent on the right not to repatriated.
This "non-refoulement" requirement [i.e., a ban on repatriating refugees without legal adjudication of their ayslum claims] remains a core element of the Geneva Refugee Convention. And when it emerged from the atrocities of the two world wars, it had us Europeans in mind first and foremost. It was not until years later that it was extended in terms of time and geography by additional protocols. In 1951, it was wounded, displaced Europeans, experienced in war and camps, for whom it was precisely this wounding that became a moral guideline in order to reach the historic agreement that no one should be sent back to a country where he or she was threatened with torture or other serious human rights violations. It is precisely this historic consensus that Europe is now in danger of falling behind - perhaps only to make people forget its own vulnerability. [my emphasis]7
She touches there on a sad and ugly irony. The Geneva Refugee Convention was based to a large extent on the experience of post-Second World War Europe. So when EU countries supposedly committed to defending “European values” blow off their legal obligations on refugee matters, it looks particularly bad.
On the other side of the Atlantic
On the US side of the Atlantic, it’s also unpleasant to see that when Joe Biden and Tony Blinken talk about the “rules-based international order doesn’t include the Geneva Refugee Convention.
Biden has announced a new Trumpista border plan8 that won't win him any Republican votes. If voters want cruelty and xenophobia, Trump and his party will always manage to offer up more than the Dems.
Much like a lot of the silly proposals EU leaders like to surface, Biden’s plan is not only both cruel and largely ineffectual. It also tramples on the Geneva Refugee Convention to which the US is a party. That's apparently not included in what Biden and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken like to call the "rules-based international order."
The one time I heard Biden speak live was in 2014, and he was heckled at the start by immigration-rights activists who were complaining about Obama's (also bad) border policy. They obviously picked an appropriate target.
Olaf Scholz calls for migration deal as EU lawmakers take German leadership to task. Politico EU 05/09/2023. <https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-olaf-scholz-migration-agreement-asylum-eu-parliament/> (Accessed: 2023-04-09).
Operational Data Portal:Ukraine Refugee Situation. United Nationals Refugee Agency 05/09/2023. <https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine> (Accessed: 2023-04-09).
Knaus, Gerald (2022): Wir und die Flüchtlinge, 80. Wien: Christian Branstätter Verlag. My translation from the German.
Kohlenberger, Judith (2023): @J_Kohlenberger. Twitter 10.05.2023. <https://twitter.com/J_Kohlenberger/status/1656214785271242752> (Accessed: 2023-10-05). My translation from the German.
Migration: „Tür zur Ausbeutung offen“. Tirol ORF.at 30.03.2023. <https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3200883/> (Accessed: 2023-10-05). My translation from the German.
Pichl, Maximilian (2023): Die EU will das Asylrecht einschränken– und die Ampel unterstützt sie dabei. Jacobin 09.05.2023, <https://jacobin.de/artikel/die-eu-will-will-das-asylrecht-einschraenken-und-die-ampel-unterstuetzt-sie-dabei-nancy-faeser-ampel-asylreform-asylrecht-pushbacks-frontex-fluechtlingsgipfel-scholz-maximilian-pichl/> (Accessed: 2023-10-05). My translation from the German.
Kohlenberger, Judith (2023): Was gehen uns die EU-Außengrenzen an? Wiener Zeitung 09.04.2023. <https://www.wienerzeitung.at/meinung/gastkommentare/2184301-Was-gehen-uns-die-EU-Aussengrenzen-an.html> (Accessed: 2023-04-09). My translation from the German.
Beitsche, Rebecca (2023): Biden rule limits asylum as end of Title 42 nears. The Hill 05/10/2023. <https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3998011-biden-rules-limit-asylum-as-white-house-grapples-with-end-of-title-42/> (Accessed: 2023-11-05).