The number of asylum seekers in Switzerland is currently rising sharply. In addition, during the colder months, more people seeking protection from Ukraine could come to Switzerland again. The head of the Secretariat of State for Migration (SEM), Christine Schraner Burgener (59), even said: “We are in the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War”.
Eduard Gnesa (70), former director of the Federal Office for Migration (today SEM) and former Swiss Special Ambassador for International Migration Cooperation, now explains: Unlike in Austria, tents for refugees in Switzerland are not needed “at the moment”. This is probably not because the number of migrants in Switzerland is currently much lower than in our Easter neighbour.
Still no tents
“But tents may also have to be built here when more refugees come,” said Gnesa, who now works in asylum counseling, in an interview with “NZZ am Sonntag”. It is important that people are housed and cared for.
When asked, the SEM says that it is currently not expected that tents will be needed. The federal government, cantons, cities and municipalities are doing everything they can to ensure that it stays that way, even if a large number of refugees continue to arrive.
Status of climate refugees
Asylum expert Eduard Gnesa is already thinking ahead: when the war in Ukraine is over, we will be faced with the big question of what to do with the climate migrants. What will happen if the fields in Bangladesh are flooded even more often? If in Somalia even more people have nothing to eat and drink because of the drought. There would then be no more refugees within the meaning of the Geneva Convention who are being politically persecuted.
That is why work is currently underway internationally on a refugee status for climate migrants. Gnesa does not expect a new status in the short term, but due to the large population growth in Africa, migration from this continent will keep Europe busy.
Open legal immigration routes
By 2050, an estimated 2.5 billion people will live in Africa and only 450 million in Europe. “The demographic pressure will also be enormous because of the lack of perspective for young people,” predicts Gnesa.
He is convinced that Europe must open legal immigration routes. After all, the shortage of skilled workers will increase in our country. “That does not mean that we include everyone, that would be an illusion. But we could train people locally in Africa for bottleneck jobs on the Swiss labor market,” says the migration expert. He is thinking, for example, of health workers, IT professionals and catering staff.
Germany and the Netherlands are already recruiting nurses in Indonesia, the Philippines and Mexico. “This ensures that specialists in these countries are trained for local needs and for the needs of these European countries,” Gnesa continues in the interview. He has something similar in mind for young people from Africa.