To coincide with the first plenary of the newly elected European Parliament, we join almost 100 human rights and humanitarian organisations — including Amnesty International, the Danish Refugee Council, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam — calling on the new EU leadership to take a firm stance to maintain the right to asylum and the rule of law.
We are alarmed by recent attempts from several EU countries to evade or ‘externalize’ their international legal responsibilities, by shifting asylum processing and refugee protection to countries outside the EU. These controversial proposals seek to dismantle the core tenet of international protection: that people under a jurisdiction have a right to seek asylum in that jurisdiction and have that claim fairly examined.
Rachel Ellis, CEO of Refugee Support, said:
Having operated for the last eight years in mainland Europe and Cyprus, as well as more recently in the UK, we’ve seen first-hand the devastating effects of increased hostility towards people seeking asylum, both in terms of government policy and media narratives. Attempts by countries to externalise their responsibilities to protect refugees represent a dangerous shift away from international law and human rights commitments. Hostile policies are not a deterrent; instead, they stoke division and animosity within societies whilst eroding all of our human rights. We stand in solidarity with all those affected by these measures, and reiterate our call to governments of the EU and UK to support a fair, well-managed and compassionate asylum system that benefits both people seeking safety and the communities who welcome them.
Wherever these schemes have been attempted, they have been rife with rights violations, placing countless people in prolonged arbitrary detention and an unbearable legal limbo, denying them crucial legal safeguards and guarantees, while costing taxpayers inordinate sums. At a time when 75% of refugees worldwide are hosted by low and middle-income countries, these proposals send a dangerous signal about EU countries’ lack of commitment to the rule of law, international treaties, and the global refugee protection system.
In the Joint Statement, we call on the EU to abandon these proposals which stand in stark contrast to existing EU law and the recently agreed EU Migration Pact. Instead, the EU must support humane, sustainable and realistic migration and asylum policies that benefit both people seeking safety and the communities that welcome them.
Background
The statement follows a letter by 15 member states calling on the European Commission to explore possibilities for external processing of asylum claims, including through changes to EU law. European Commission President von der Leyen wrote at the end of June that these “innovative ideas […] will certainly deserve our attention” in the new political cycle.
These proposals build on a long line of measures geared at preventing the arrival of people seeking asylum in the EU through agreements with countries outside of the EU, with little to no attention paid to the human rights records of those authorities. These partnerships have already resulted in countless human rights violations and demonstrated the EU’s limited ability or interest in monitoring or enforcing human rights standards outside of EU territory when it comes to migration.
