Brussels, Belgium
Reuters
European Union lawmakers voted on Thursday to require member countries to host some of the refugees and migrants coming to the bloc at times of high arrivals, part of a fiercely contested reform due ahead of a 2024 pan-European election.
Rescued migrants look out to sea on the Geo Barents rescue ship, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), as the ship makes its way to the Italian port of Bari, in the central Mediterranean Sea, on 25th March, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi/File photo.
The European Parliament adopted its position on the looming reform of the bloc’s migration and asylum rules ahead of negotiating its final form with the 27 EU member states that have long been split over the so-called obligatory relocations.
Countries including Poland and Hungary refuse to host any of the new arrivals while others including Italy and France – where people from the Middle East and Africa arrive on smugglers’ boats across the Mediterranean Sea – say they cannot cope alone.
Warsaw, Budapest and their allies say they can help by providing money, staff or equipment instead of being legally obliged to take in people. The Mediterranean countries of arrival and the rich destination states like Germany say that falls short.
The bloc’s migration and asylum system collapsed in 2015 when more than one million people – mostly fleeing the war in Syria – reached Europe’s southern shores.
That caught the EU by surprise, stretching its reception and security capacities, and triggering a wave of anti-immigration sentiment across the bloc.
The EU has since tightened external borders and asylum laws to keep people away, and the sensitive issue of migration faded from the top of the bloc’s political agenda as the COVID-19 pandemic cut global mobility.
But Mediterranean arrivals rose last year, with the bloc’s border agency Frontex reporting some 330,000 unauthorised arrivals.
With irregular immigration on the rise, those including Italy’s far-right government are leading growing calls for the EU to do more to reduce sea arrivals.
Previously seen as hardline, ideas to build border fences and assess people’s asylum claims outside of Europe – including in Rwanda, as proposed by Denmark – are back on the agenda and part of the EU’s political discussions on managing migration.
While the EU wants to overhaul its defunct system before a bloc-wide election in 2024, the issue of obligatory relocations seems as stuck as ever, according to diplomats.
ITALY NARROWS ASYLUM RIGHTS IN NEW CLAMPDOWN ON IMMIGRATION
Italy’s nationalist government approved a bill in the upper house of parliament on Thursday that aims to reduce the number of migrants who can claim some form of asylum and curb integration efforts.
The bill, which still needs the approval of the lower house to become law, was drawn up after a shipwreck off southern Italy in February that killed more than 90 migrants.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said the legislation, which includes tougher jail terms for human smugglers, is intended to dissuade people from putting their trust in traffickers and trying to reach Italy illegally.
Critics say the bill is repressive and will do nothing to halt the flow of migrants seeking a better life in Europe, but will instead force ever more newcomers into illegality.
Among the most contested measures is a decision to eliminate “special protection” residency permits that authorities can offer migrants who don’t qualify for asylum, but who face humanitarian risks back home, or have family ties in Italy.
The government said the system was being abused, noting that in 2022 authorities had handed out 10,506 special protection permits against 7,494 permits offering refugee status and 7,039 that granted a separate form of international protection.
The bill also halts state-funded Italian language courses and eliminates legal advice services for migrants hosted in official reception centres.
Italy has seen a recent surge in arrivals by boat migrants, with 34,715 people reaching the country from 1st January to 19th April, against 8,669 in the same period last year, alarming Meloni, who took office in 2022 promising to reduce migrant flows.
Earlier this week, Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida said Italians were at risk of “ethnic replacement”, drawing criticism from centre-left parties who accused him of promoting white supremacy – a charge he has rejected.
Opposition senators urged the government to do more to help migrants be absorbed into the workplace, saying Italy needed hundreds of thousands of new workers as the population declines.
“Why if you are enemies of illegal immigration are you doing all you can to push people into illegality,” said Ivan Scalfarotto, a senator with the centrist Italia Viva party.
– CRISPIAN BALMER, Rome, Italy/Reuters
