Debate: Human rights protection and the EU external migration policy
Date: TUESDAY, 18 MAY 2021
Speaker: Tineke Strik
Country: Poland
Language: EN

This INI report aims to ensure that the EU’s cooperation with third countries on migration respects and promotes the human rights of migrants and refugees across the globe. And also welcome to you, Commissioner Várhelyi! This responsibility does not stop at our borders. A shared responsibility is urgently needed as more than 80% of the refugees are hosted in their neighbouring countries, often suffering from a lack of prospects, even of protection. Two-and-a-half years ago, most EU Member States committed to sharing this responsibility, giving support to the Global Compact on refugees. But on the other hand, the EU developments on asylum raised the question as to whether the EU and its Member States really keep up with their commitments made at the global level.  The tendency of externalisation of its asylum and migration policies seems to increase the pressure on the region instead of relieving it, and this is the result of the outsourcing of protection and border control towards third countries. The formal and informal agreements the EU concludes with third countries of transit are likely to result in less, instead of more, responsibility-sharing, and this is not only a political choice but also a human rights concern.  The EU has developed a pretty advanced common asylum policy, at least on paper. Once an asylum seeker sets foot on the territory of the EU, they are entitled to a proper asylum procedure and reception standards. As I said, on paper at least, as in practice, we face serious compliance gaps. But parallel to the building of an internal asylum policy, the EU has increased its cooperation with neighbouring countries and other transit countries to combat irregular migration. Where we first had formal agreements with countries of origin, we now merely see informal agreements with transit countries and this cooperation leads to migrants or refugees getting stuck in a country where they do not have rights and where there’s no guaranteed access to effective protection.  This cooperation with neighbouring countries often creates a chain effect. People are returned from country to country, but also the other way round: people are faced with obstacles on their way to a place of protection. This sometimes even leads to refugees not being able to flee their own country. If you look at the situation of Syrians, they really face problems even fleeing their own country as the borders, for instance with Turkey, are blocked. If the arrangements between the EU and a third country lead to situations where refugees are stuck, left without protection or even tortured or subject to refoulement, the EU has a responsibility as well.  Better cooperation with third countries on migration lacks clear criteria on human rights. There are no conditions on protection in a third country, only the number of migrants is decisive for entering into cooperation or not. This report therefore calls for a human rights impact assessment before entering into cooperation and, in addition to that, a transparent and independent monitoring system of the human rights impact on migrants and refugees that would allow us to intervene if things are going wrong.  The report expresses criticism on the shift towards informal deals, because informalisation means that the cooperation takes place in the complete absence of due parliamentary scrutiny and judicial oversight that, according to the Treaties, the conclusion of formal readmission agreements would warrant, and that means that this shift from formalisation to informalisation sidelines the European Parliament. We do not have any means to criticise, monitor, steer or influence this ongoing cooperation, but it also leaves those subject to this cooperation without any effective remedy or access to justice, and I think the EU-Turkey statement is a clear example of that, where refugees who were stuck on Lesbos wanted to complain to the Court of Justice because they saw that the EU-Turkey statement affected their right to asylum. The Court of Justice said, well, this is not our competence, I am not having competence to assess it because this is something between the EU’s national leaders and Erdoğan, whereas for everyone it’s clear that the EU budget is involved and that the Council Presidency and the Commission were very much involved in this cooperation. So this report clearly calls for a formalisation so that access to justice and democratic control can be safeguarded.  Furthermore, the report also points at the other impact of this cooperation on migrants and refugees somewhere outside the territory of the EU. For instance, this cooperation also impinged upon the mobility opportunities for migrants in their region as freedom of movement and the right to work make migrants self-reliant and help further their integration. Intra-ECOWAS migration should be promoted instead of what we now see through the border controls that the EU asks for, the free movement is hampered in those regions. So mobility is hampered but most important of all is that the human rights of refugees and migrants are at stake with this cooperation.  So we call for better scrutiny. We also call not only upon the Council and the Commission to take these human rights into account, but also on our ourselves to do a better scrutiny on the funding of this cooperation and on demanding that we have a role in scrutinising this cooperation to make sure that human rights are complied with.