European Union leaders have signaled support for tightening the bloc’s immigration policy and the advent of “innovative solutions” to the problem, such as the detention and control post opened by Italy this week in Albania. The result of a meeting that went into the night in Brussels on Thursday (17), the document speaks of the need for change, but does not venture into further explanation.
Human rights groups say that measures like the Italian one violate international law and limit the search for refuge and asylum for vulnerable populations. The appeals found little space among the politicians present, such as the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, and his Belgian counterpart, Alexander De Croo. “History has shown that these solutions do not bring great results,” the latter told the Euronews channel.
On the contrary, discussion about similar initiatives thrived. The Netherlands, under a right-wing administration like Italy, for example, announced negotiations with Uganda for the transfer of irregular African immigrants.
While the leaders were dining on sea bass and mushrooms waiting for the draft document that would be released at the end of the meeting, a baby was found dead on a clandestine vessel in the English Channel. The route towards the United Kingdom, which has not seen the recent relief in immigration flow seen in other European border regions, has already caused 52 deaths this year, the highest number since 2018.
In a speech upon leaving the meeting, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, repeated that initiatives such as the Italian one should be studied, but that the bloc had legislation approved in the first half of the year and that it needs to be implemented. “We need to define once and for all, for example, what the concept of a safe third country is,” he declared, referring to the plan to transfer refugees to places that do not pose a threat to them.
Von der Leyen also stated that the waves of illegal immigration in Finland and Poland are occasional and accused Belarus and Russia of fabricating them as a strategy to destabilize the continent’s eastern borders. “These are hybrid attacks by state agents,” he declared, also citing similar attempts in the Balkans. Thus, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk won public support for his radical decision this week to suspend asylum applications for irregular immigrants from Belarus and Ukraine.
“Of all those who do not have the right to stay in Europe, only 20% are returned to their countries of origin. We need to work on this,” declared Von der Leyen, recognizing that the bloc’s bureaucracy in control needs to be improved.
Europe, like other parts of the world, is seeing the consolidation of right-wing populism that is imposing itself at the polls and on the continent’s agenda, as seen in the case of immigration.
