Migrants, the waves are back in Europe

BRUSSELS – “The proliferation of anti-migrant barriers – as many as 19 of them demarcating stretches of border outside but also inside the Schengen Zone, …

all erected in the last 20 years – raises numerous legal issues regarding the respect of fundamental rights: the main one is the one related to the right of access to international protection.” This is stated in the Migrantes Foundation’s dossier “Report Right of Asylum 2022” published this Tuesday.

“Although it must be acknowledged that the European Commission has resisted the demands of several member states to be able to use EU funds for the construction of these border barriers, its action on one of the biggest political issues tearing Europe apart has been weak or nonexistent.” he continues, “But the irrationality of some of the proposals put forward by the current Commission chaired by Ursula von der Leyen, along with the overall vision underpinning them, is also a disturbing sign of a setback in the process of building the common asylum system in the EU.”

“The last few years have seen a sharp rise in ‘irregular’ crossings of the EU’s external borders from the Western Balkans: from 5,900 in 2018 to 106,400 in the first nine months of this 2022, although the figure as a whole reflects repeated, strenuous attempts often made by individuals,” it further reads. “The IOM counts at least 252 refugees and migrants who lost their lives in actions carried out by European authorities and reported by survivors as pushbacks between 2021 and October 2022,” the dossier adds, “Some 537,000 people applied for asylum for the first time on EU territory in 2021: up 29 percent from 2020.

And the first half of ’22 already sees 365 thousand applicants, compared to 201 thousand in the same period of ’21.” Syria (about 99,000 applicants in ’21) and Afghanistan (85,000) “have been the main citizenships of people seeking protection in the EU for years now. They are followed in 2021 by Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Somalia, Morocco, and Colombia.”

Compared to 2020, 2021 saw a slightly higher number of first-instance decisions on asylum seekers in the EU territory (about 524,000 versus 521,000), but a decrease in positive decisions (202,000 versus 212,000), thus registering a recognition rate of 38.5 percent, compared to 40.7 percent the year before.

Also in ’21, the EU granted protection to 274 thousand applicants (recognitions of refugee status, subsidiary or humanitarian protection between first instance and final instance on appeal). But even this overall figure is down from the previous two years. From 2020 to October 2022, the European Commission’s Voluntary relocation scheme allowed 5,001 “vulnerable” asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors and recognized refugees to be relocated from Greece. During the same period, sporadic operations in favor of Italy achieved the relocation of just over 800 people.