In January, Greek Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis featured prominently on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos. Among the many varied matters, he was requested to touch upon was migration. “Greece has in all probability managed the migration downside higher than most different European international locations,” he stated confidently in an interview with CNN’s Richard Quest on the sidelines of the discussion board. “We gained a powerful victory [in the elections] partly as a result of we succeeded in managing the migration by way of a troublesome however honest migration coverage.”
However this “powerful however honest migration coverage” resulted within the dying of greater than 500 folks, together with 100 kids, in a single incident of a migrant boat sinking off the Greek coast close to Pylos on June 14. The Greek coastguard has been accused of inflicting what is taken into account one of many worst maritime disasters within the Mediterranean by making an attempt to tow the boat to Italian territorial waters.
The Greek authorities have denied duty and as an alternative arrested 9 of the survivors, blaming them for inflicting the shipwreck. As Mitsotakis headed for Davos, the investigation was closed and handed to the prosecution, after requests by the survivors’ attorneys to contemplate essential proof of their defence have been rejected.
The injustice and stunning disregard for human life on this story aren’t an aberration, however the fruits of a coverage of systematic denial of safety and violation of the rights of refugees. And they’re additionally mirrored within the new migration pact the European Union has simply concluded.
The tragic tales of dying at European borders and the dearth of motion on them point out the route through which Europe is headed, united below a far-right “legislation and order” flag and racist anti-migrant insurance policies. It’s in direction of a darkish future through which human rights will may come to an finish.
A racist EU migration pact
The difficulty of migration has all the time been a helpful political device and one of many cornerstones of the far proper in Europe. However up to now decade, the remainder of the political spectrum has additionally more and more instrumentalised and progressively adopted it in a determined try to enhance declining electoral fortunes. Because of this, European migration insurance policies have taken a pointy flip to the proper, reflecting increasingly more carefully the far proper’s racist agenda and a rhetoric of exclusion of non-Europeans.
The brand new “Migration Pact” of the EU is a living proof. The European Parliament and the European Council reached a provisional settlement on it 5 days earlier than Christmas. Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament, referred to as it a “historic day”; human rights organisations referred to as it a “catastrophe”. On February 8, EU member states accredited it, and it’s now pending ultimate formal endorsement by the EU Parliament and the European Council.
The rules that the pact will introduce will cowl all levels of the asylum course of: from screening asylum seekers upon arrival and assortment of biometric knowledge to guidelines for figuring out which member state is answerable for dealing with their functions. The provisions, which are supposed to “basically change how we cope with migration and asylum”, nevertheless, include quite a few gaps which permit for abuse and additional strengthening of violent insurance policies at EU borders.
Rights organisations have identified that the pact can usher within the detention of asylum seekers, together with households with kids, in prison-like amenities; result in extra violence by border authorities; and permit deportation to unsafe third international locations.
It won’t present a protected and dignified path to the asylum-seeking process that would save lives and it’ll not forestall tragedies just like the Pylos shipwreck from repeating. As an alternative, as Amnesty Worldwide notes, the brand new pact will end in “a surge in struggling on each step of an individual’s journey to hunt asylum” in Europe.
Moreover, international locations like Poland and Hungary have rejected the relocation mechanism, below which they must settle for refugees. The pact offers them the choice choice to pay 20,000 euros ($21,550) per refugee; in different phrases, they will pay their method out of their obligations below European and worldwide legislation.
This implies not solely that there will probably be a good heavier burden placed on international locations on the EU’s exterior borders, however that fundamental authorized norms on the safety of refugees are being eroded.
A darkish future for Fortress Europe
Total, the migration pact displays an inclination inside the EU to shrink the scope of worldwide legislation to the purpose the place it turns into irrelevant to these whom it was created to guard.
Failing to place in place a standard European asylum system with clear guidelines and rules, not lifting the strain from entrance international locations, additional militarising border management, and outsourcing the issue of migration to 3rd international locations mirror the EU’s persevering with effort to dodge its obligations below worldwide legislation in direction of asylum seekers.
The long-term impact of ignoring and downplaying worldwide authorized norms is the potential collapse of the worldwide worldwide system, which might imply the top of the human rights regime as we all know it.
One other disturbing side of Europe’s migration pact asylum coverage is that it discriminates between folks in search of asylum. The EU introduced that its provisions won’t apply to Ukrainian refugees. In different phrases, Brussels formally applies worldwide legislation selectively; it brazenly declares that individuals of a sure race are deserving of a pathway to security and others aren’t.
That is all of the extra egregious contemplating that the migration pact is supposed to maintain away folks fleeing battle and different crises in Africa and the Center East, which European international locations are sometimes immediately concerned in.
By clearly and formally discriminating between who’s deserving of a protected and authorized route of asylum-seeking and migration and who is just not, the EU is setting a harmful precedent. Discrimination over the proper to request safety below worldwide legislation and the allocation of various rights for various teams opens the door to authorized apartheid.
It seems the EU has appointed itself because the arbiter of who has the proper to life and dignity and who doesn’t. That is obvious in its response to the struggle in Gaza as nicely.
Europe has turned a blind eye to the accusations of genocide in Gaza, as European international locations proceed promoting weapons to Israel and parroting its outrageous argument about “its proper to self-defence” from a inhabitants it occupies.
You will need to word right here that among the many most fervent pro-Israeli forces in Europe is the far proper which is utilizing the struggle in Gaza to push its agenda, promote concepts of cultural struggle, and whitewash its anti-Semitism.
Help for the far proper is surging in Europe and that’s not due to “unlawful migration” as some EU officers, like Ylva Johansson, commissioner for house affairs, have claimed. It’s as a result of European “centrist conservatives”, like Mitsotakis, have embraced the far proper’s agenda for their very own slim political and financial pursuits.
This can definitely be mirrored within the upcoming European parliamentary elections scheduled for June.
If there isn’t a profound overhaul of the antihuman and inhumane route European politics and insurance policies are taking, the way forward for the EU seems to be very darkish. Because it stands now, we’re on a straight path in direction of a Europe the place the Viktor Orbáns, Geert Wilderss and Marine Le Pens can have a a lot stronger say about what’s on the agenda and what’s not.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
