The lessons from the ‘We can do it’ chaos have only now been learned: the effects of the stricter EU asylum policy

It is now possible to carry out asylum procedures at the EU’s external borders. To this end, asylum centers must be built near the border where the identity of migrants is checked. Until a decision on the asylum application is made, people should be allowed to be housed in detention camps under prison conditions for a maximum of twelve weeks. Anyone who is not entitled to be admitted will be turned back.

Initially, the procedure should only be used for people from countries with an average EU recognition rate of less than 20 percent. This concerns migrants from Turkey, India, Tunisia, Serbia and Albania. Readmission agreements are being sought with such states.

The majority of refugees – for example from Syria, Afghanistan or Sudan – will continue to be entitled to a normal procedure. What is new, however, is that you are hardly entitled to asylum if you have traveled to the EU border via a supposedly safe third country. In addition to countries such as Tunisia and Albania, Georgia and Moldova must now also be counted among the safe countries of origin.

A quota is set for each EU interior to accept migrants. However, each country can decide for itself whether it wants to adhere to this quota.

However, states that accept fewer people must provide compensation in a different form. They either provide a benefit in kind – for example assistance with the procedure – or pay 20,000 euros per applicant. There should only be a mandatory mechanism for the distribution of migrants in the event of a crisis.

Cooperation with third countries should be further promoted. Recipient countries must receive more support, smuggling crimes must be combated more strongly and deportations must be better and more safely regulated.

The EU also wants to combat population decline and skilled labor shortages by recruiting people from third countries. To this end, legal migration must be made easier and more sponsorship programs must be established.

At the moment, the countries on the EU’s external borders – Italy and Greece – are particularly affected by the influx of migrants. The Dublin procedure ensures an unequal distribution of arriving people, because they are only allowed to apply for asylum where they first set foot on European soil.

The border protection agency Frontex was established in 2005 to protect Europe’s borders. However, this has been repeatedly criticized as forcibly preventing migrants from crossing the border. Due to the continued increase in the number of asylum seekers, Italy declared a state of emergency in April and asked for more support from member states.

Refugee organizations are outraged. The European Caritas association stated that the reform would not solve the asylum problem in the EU, but would limit access to asylum and the rights of those seeking protection. In the states on the external borders, detention – including of families – under poor reception conditions would probably become part of daily life. They describe the individual right to asylum as effectively dead.

Amnesty International writes about X: “The planned reform violates human rights and will lead to more suffering, opposition and violence at the EU’s external borders. Geas will not solve the existing problems, but will actually make them worse!”