EU's New Migration Pact Called a 'Bow to Right-Wing Extremists'

The European Union reached an agreement Wednesday on new rules to manage migration and asylum cases that the Left party in the European Parliament called the "death of the individual right to asylum in Europe" and a "bow to right-wing extremists and fascists."

The Pact on Migration and Asylum, decided after all-night negotiations, would allow for the detention and fast-tracked deportation of new arrivals who immigration officials believe pose a threat to security or are not likely to win asylum, The Guardian reported. Those detained or deported could include women and children.

"This agreement will set back European asylum law for decades to come," Eve Geddie, the director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office, said in a statement. "Its likely outcome is a surge in suffering on every step of a person's journey to seek asylum in the E.U. From the way they are treated by countries outside the E.U., their access to asylum and legal support at Europe's border, to their reception within the E.U., this agreement is designed to make it harder for people to access safety."

The E.U.'s previous system for managing new arrivals, the Dublin agreement, primarily tasked a migrant's first port of entry with processing their asylum case. However, that system broke down in 2015, when more than 1 million people crossed the Mediterranean and arrived at the E.U.'s southern border, primarily fleeing the civil war in Syria as well as ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This put an administrative strain on less wealthy E.U. nations like Greece, where 66% of arrivals between 2014 and 2016 landed. As journalist Patrick Kingsley pointed out in his 2017 book on the topic, the E.U. could have comfortably settled the new refugees among its nearly 500 million inhabitants, but other E.U. countries only agreed to accept one-ninth of the people who arrived in Italy and Greece, straining the bloc's concept of solidarity.

The new pact was announced in 2020, but member states, the European Commission, and the European Parliament had not been able to agree on its contents until now.

"There is currently a major risk that the pact results in an ill-functioning, costly, and cruel system that falls apart on implementation and leaves critical issues unaddressed."

"It's truly a historic day," European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said, as The Associated Press reported.

But Oxfam's E.U. migration expert Stephanie Pope had a different response.

"As we hear E.U. statements celebrating this deal, the question is, at what cost?" Pope asked.

For Pope and other advocates, the cost is the human rights of refugees and migrants. According to the agreement, the country where a migrant first arrives will take their biometric data, including facial images and fingerprints from everyone older than six, and quickly consider their case. It is at this point that migrants can be detained or earmarked for deportation.

Countries where new migrants are less likely to arrive can either accept a number of refugees determined based on the country's gross domestic product and population or put money into an E.U. fund. Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said border states would "no longer feel alone" after the deal, but Amnesty International said the support was not sufficient.

"Instead of prioritizing solidarity through relocations and strengthening protection systems, states will be able to simply pay to strengthen external borders, or fund countries outside the E.U. to prevent people from reaching Europe," Geddie said.

"The E.U. now risks sleepwalking into a system in even greater need of reform than the current one."

Left Member of European Parliament (MEP) Cornelia Ernst of Germany said the option to send funds for border surveillance within the E.U. or abroad was a "pure mockery" of solidarity, while Left MEP Konstantinos Arvanitis said it would enable "European Guantanamo with legal European sponsorship."

Amnesty and Oxfam joined more than 50 other non-governmental organizations in sending an open letter to E.U. leaders ahead of Wednesday's agreement, urging them to protect human rights in any deal.

"There is currently a major risk that the pact results in an ill-functioning, costly, and cruel system that falls apart on implementation and leaves critical issues unaddressed," the letter read in part.

The NGOs argued that the E.U. should base its overall refugee policy on its response to those fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Europe's solidarity and commitment to human rights cannot be defined by place of origin, race, ethnicity, or immigration status," the groups said.

Amnesty expressed concerns about part of the new deal that allows E.U. states to ignore asylum rules in response to large numbers of new arrivals, as well as its reliance on deals with countries outside the E.U. to help police its borders. Such deals have led to human rights abuses in the past, such as reports that Tunisia was leaving intercepted migrants in the desert, according to AP.

"Amnesty International has long called on E.U. institutions and member states to put human rights at the center of negotiations on E.U. asylum reforms," Geddie said. "However, after years of complex negotiations, the E.U. now risks sleepwalking into a system in even greater need of reform than the current one."

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) wrote on social media that the reforms were "byzantine in their complexity and Orban-esque in their cruelty to refugees," referring to right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Save the Children Europe, meanwhile, called the deal "historically bad" and said it would violate children's rights and put them in danger.

"It is evident that for the majority of legislators, the priority was to close borders, not protect people, including families and children escaping violence, conflict, hunger, and death while seeking protection in Europe," Willy Bergogné, Save the Children Europe's director and E.U. representative, said in a statement.

Technical talks will continue on the pact until February of next year, and it is expected to be adopted before elections for European Parliament in June. Metsola said it was important to reach an agreement before those elections, according to the AP, since immigration will likely be a major issue.

The ECRE said it would now focus on making sure the law was interpreted and implemented in line with E.U. and international law, while Oxfam called on the E.U. to pass a measure that truly shared responsibility for new arrivals, funded better systems for processing asylum cases, and created safer routes to Europe while rescuing migrants stranded at sea.

Geddie said that Amnesty International would continue to call on the E.U. to address human rights violations and "take steps to ensure a human rights compliant, sustainable, and well-resourced response to people arriving at Europe's borders."