One year before the end of the European legislative term, the European Union must still find a synthesis between its member states’ different interests in migration. And an agreement on the Commission’s Pact on Asylum and Migration is still slow in the making. Yet, this synthesis is far from being achieved. In addition, every policy […]
Migration: moving away from containment
In the blatant absence of better ideas, and against the backdrop of irreconcilable interests, the approach of the European Union and its member states to migration and asylum is increasingly focusing on the externalisation of their management and on the returns of all those people who do not qualify for protection. This means asking the EU’s neighbouring country, such as Turkey, Libya, Tunisia or other African countries to control and stop migrants’ movements to Europe.
But this approach based on containment is not only morally questionable, it is also short-sighted and doomed to fail, as it ignore the complexity of the phenomenon and the manifold interests and motivations of all the actors involved: the migrants, the countries of origin and transit, and even the European Union member states’ authentic interest in receiving migrants.
With this dossier, the Progressive Post wants to look at the shortcomings of current European and national policies. It underlines that, unfortunately, the prospects of current negotiations and the difficulty of finding common ground among EU member states do not give much hope for an improvement towards more solidarity and more humane treatment of migrants, and for the badly needed opening of new legal pathways.
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Forcing undocumented migrants to leave the EU (commonly referred to as ‘returns’ in EU policy lingo) has become one of the key pillars of how the EU manages migration at its borders and within its territory. The underlying assumption is that more and quicker returns will deter people from coming to Europe, will help ‘fight […]
For two decades, Europe has tried to contain migrants and refugees in neighbouring countries. The situation in Tunisia is merely the most recent ‘crisis’ that shows that this approach is bankrupt. Long-term, formalised and unconditional support addressing the concerns of Europe’s neighbours will also better serve Europe’s interests. For two decades, the EU and its […]
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