A man sitting on his belongings after the fire at Moria camp, Greece, September 14, 2020. -

ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP

  • The European Commission presented on Tuesday its project for reforming asylum in the Union, which aims to improve the management of immigration on the continent.

  • This new system must replace the Dublin regulation, the keystone of the current system, which has crystallized the tensions.

  • But five years after the 2015 refugee crisis, if the words have changed, the ideas are the same, believe two experts interviewed by

    20 Minutes

    .

Several weeks after the Moria camp fire in Greece, as humanitarian boats once again patrol off European coasts, asylum reform in the European Union was eagerly awaited.

His presentation, scheduled for March and postponed because of the coronavirus epidemic, took place on Tuesday.

The key is a desire for consensus between the 27. At the risk of not satisfying anyone?

Among the main measures announced by the team of the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen: the obligation of solidarity in the EU.

If this measure comes into force, all countries will have to participate in the management of immigration, either by welcoming migrants, or, and this is new, by "return assistance", financial support to send migrants back. in their country.

"It's a gift to Victor Orbán [the Hungarian president, anti-immigration] who will be very happy to facilitate deportations", slices François Gemenne, Belgian researcher specializing in migratory flows and author of the book

On a tous un ami noir

(Fayard , 2020).

"Dublin is still there"

It must be said that the Visegrad group (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) formally refuses to welcome its quota of migrants, decided in 2015. The constraint "does not work", reaffirmed Tuesday the Austrian chancellor, the conservative Sebastian Kurz.

Brussels is therefore part of the consensus: "The Commission had no other choice, it was at an impasse, the project developed in 2015 after the migration crisis was completely blocked", analyzes Virginie Guiraudon, research director at the CNRS and specialist in migration policies.

Another unblocking attempt: the abandonment of the “Dublin regulation”.

This is the name of this European law which stipulates that each country is responsible for migrants entering its soil.

A measure that weighs heavily on states located at the gates of Europe such as Greece or Italy.

For Virginie Guiraudon, this speech at least had "the originality of acknowledging that Dublin never worked".

From now on, the country responsible for the request may be the one where a migrant has family ties, where he has worked or studied, or the country which issued a visa.

Otherwise, the countries of first arrival will remain responsible for the request.

What makes François Gemenne say: “The plan says that we get rid of Dublin.

It's not true at all, it's still there.

"

Make Europe "a fortress"

Thus, the new roadmap provides for "rigorous" controls and the presence of registration camps in third countries at the borders of Europe, such as Libya or Turkey.

“We are going to increase the number of camps in the border area.

We are going to create other Moria, ”predicts the researcher.

The objective for Europe is to remove more quickly migrants deemed unlikely to obtain refugee status, whose treatment will be accelerated.

“It's a plan that will reuse the same recipes that don't work: no common policy, but more surveillance and more closure.

When we do not manage to come to an agreement, we rather try to prevent migrants from entering, ”he summarizes.

“It's purely a dressing.

It is the speech of a car salesman who tries to pass off a car that has 100,000 km for a new car.

It follows exactly the same logic of headlong rush and to make Europe a fortress.

"

Virginie Guiraudon adds: “It's like repackaging.

There is a change in vocabulary, we no longer use the same words.

Otherwise nothing new under the sun: these are the same priorities as before: cooperation with third countries, the strengthening of returns, these are ideas formulated since the 2000s, ”she continues.

An interminable wait

The two specialists hoped for a more ambitious plan.

With measures such as "the establishment of safe routes to the European Union, to free themselves from smugglers", explains François Gemenne.

Or the creation "of a European Asylum Agency to harmonize the criteria, and avoid having 27 different regimes, as is the case today", he adds.

Virginie Guiraudon mentions for her part “the mutual recognition between States of decisions in matters of asylum or a harmonization of criteria, which remains wishful thinking.

"

Meanwhile, 12,000 people are still waiting to enter Europe in a hastily rebuilt camp after the fire in Moria.

And thousands more in other parts of the world.

"There is a gigantic gap between the inertia of the European decision-making process and the fact that people wait for months, even years, without a status," said the researcher.

A time that migrants do not have.

"They cannot wait three more years", concludes Viriginie Guiraudon, who calls for "faster decisions".

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