More deportations, more control: The EU wants to change the asylum system – but there is a risk of failure

More deportations, more control: The EU wants to reform its asylum system. But she fails to get problems out of the way.

It’s supposed to be a big hit: The EU wants to reform its asylum system. The goal: limit irregular migration, register all arrivals, deport those who are obliged to leave the country more quickly. Brussels has been working on such a reform for years, and several attempts have already failed. Now, however, the political pressure seems to be high enough to reach an agreement.

A key part of the reform are the new regulations at the external borders. According to the plan, all irregular migrants are to be systematically registered there in the future. In addition to this so-called screening, accelerated asylum procedures should also be possible – in order to be able to quickly deport the person in case of doubt.

The EU expects a number of advantages from this procedure. For example, entry into the EU is subject to uniform standards. The states will then know more precisely who is entering the EU – and thus prevent people from moving through the EU unrecognized and unregistered for weeks. In addition, Parliament in particular insists that the human rights situation at the border should be monitored more closely and stringently. Because time and again there are violations of the law, such as the violent rejection of migrants and illegal detentions in secret places, about which the ARD magazine “Monitor” reported.

But there are many open and unanswered questions. The EU states are so deeply divided on the migration issue that the entire project is in danger of failing. An overview of three major problems:

The asylum seekers are registered at the border, and then? In many cases, the first EU country in which they arrived is responsible. There are exceptions, for example, if family members live in another EU country. If people who were first registered in Italy travel further, for example to Germany, the federal government could theoretically deport these people back to Italy. This is what is known as the Dublin procedure.

But the question of jurisdiction has been the subject of disputes within the EU for years. States with external EU borders – Greece, Italy, Cyprus – in particular criticize that they are disadvantaged in this system compared to the interior countries because they are largely responsible for the initial registration. In the meantime, they are partially circumventing the problem with tricks: In December, for example, the Italian government arbitrarily suspended the Dublin Agreement and is no longer taking back people registered in Italy.

However, the problem that the Mediterranean countries are overburdened is not tackled by the reform either. A solidarity mechanism should only take effect in crisis situations: the countries should then be able to choose whether to take in people or send help to the border. Experts therefore doubt that an agreement will be reached: “The states do not trust each other,” says Constantin Hruschka, an expert on European migration law at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.

The lawyer thinks it is unlikely that countries like Italy will agree to the reform as long as there are no guarantees that other countries will accept asylum seekers from the countries of arrival. “In addition, the current Italian government generally rejects regulations that further curtail its own sovereignty,” says Hruschka.

Five days for screening, 12 weeks for the accelerated asylum procedure: the authorities should be given that much time outside of times of crisis to complete the procedures. During this time, the country of arrival may detain the irregular migrants. In individual cases, people could be arrested, according to the EU Commission. Critics, for example in the EU Parliament, are more likely to assume that imprisonment will be the norm.

The deadlines were set so tightly by the EU Commission for a specific reason: “One of the most controversial discussions was and is how long and under what conditions people can be detained at the border in accordance with international law,” says Hruschka. Raphael Bossong, an expert on EU domestic policy at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), also points to this fundamental question: “Are you allowed to lock up people just because they apply for asylum?” He says: “The EU could have a hard time justifying this under the rule of law.”