The European Union’s newly approved Migration Pact, a landmark legislation designed to address irregular immigration and asylum issues, is a double-edged sword. While it aims to streamline the asylum process and distribute responsibility more equitably among its member states, it also raises alarming concerns about human rights violations, mass surveillance, and discriminatory practices. The pact’s focus on stricter border controls, intrusive data collection, and automated decision-making systems could usher in a dystopian era for migrants and asylum seekers.
In a close vote on 10 April 2024, the European Parliament approved the controversial Pact on Migration and Asylum, a sweeping set of regulations designed to address the continent’s ongoing struggle with irregular immigration and asylum seekers. This landmark legislation, born from the ashes of the 2015 refugee crisis and years of heated debate, aims to streamline the asylum process, deter “bogus” asylum seekers, and establish a more equitable distribution of responsibility among EU member states; however, the pact has been met with both applause and criticism, with NGOs, left-wing Social Democrats, as well as some conservative factions expressing deep disappointment.
Crucially, the pact focuses solely on irregular immigrants seeking asylum, leaving broader migration issues like labour shortages and demographic challenges unaddressed. It also excludes integration policies and the regularisation of undocumented immigrants, leaving these matters to individual member states. The pact’s most contentious elements include stricter border controls, a “safe third country” provision for returning asylum seekers, and a complex solidarity mechanism that allows countries to either accept their quota of asylum seekers or contribute financially to alternative measures. Critics argue that these provisions could lead to human rights violations and disproportionately burden countries on the EU’s external borders.
A Turning Point for Europe’s Migration Policy?
The new pact marks a significant shift in the EU’s approach to migration, prioritising efficiency and deterrence over humanitarian concerns. Whether this will lead to a more sustainable and humane system remains to be seen. One thing is clear though: the debate over migration in Europe is far from over.
The final talks to seal the pact took place in 2022 and 2023 in a very different context than when the proposal was initially submitted in 2020. The pandemic and subsequent reduction in movement during that time were major factors. After the pandemic, irregular migration and the arrival of asylum seekers in Europe resumed in greater numbers. Additionally, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 added to the complexity, with around 4 million Ukrainians being granted refuge on EU soil. As a result, many Western countries found their refugee-processing systems overwhelmed, leading to increased tensions and political shifts related to asylum and migration policies.
The growing acceptance of restrictive stances on asylum by European political parties and public opinion also influenced the talks surrounding the pact. This included electoral gains by xenophobic and nativist parties, and mainstream parties shifting towards greater control and reduced rights for asylum seekers. As a result, the main criticism of the pact is its focus on securing greater control over arrivals and reducing the possibility of requesting asylum at Europe’s external borders.
While the pact aims to harmonise and regulate asylum management in Europe, it does not address many of the main shortcomings in the current management of irregular immigration and asylum, as well as fails to create a single refugee status valid throughout the EU, and major national differences in assistance for asylum seekers and refugees still exist.
One of the key challenges is the return or repatriation of failed applicants, which continues to depend on agreements with the countries of origin. The pact’s provisions for foreign policy predominantly serve as a guide for action, and certain elements are likely to fail. Additionally, the pact’s regulations will require a significant amount of funding for implementation; however, the allocated amount may be insufficient based on past spending by member states while attending to refugees.
In reality, the pact regulates responsibility far more clearly than solidarity, and the scope of solidarity in terms of distribution appears relatively limited. The concept of “crisis” and “force majeure” is vaguely defined in the pact, and it remains to be seen how the EU will address similar crises in the future.
In conclusion, the pact’s goal of establishing similar procedures and standards across member states is met with various challenges and limitations, and its effectiveness in addressing the complex asylum and migration issues in Europe remains uncertain.
Despite dire warnings from civil society organisations, the EU’s new Migration Pact threatens to unleash a dystopian era of mass surveillance on migrants and asylum seekers. This pact, cloaked in the language of security and efficiency, is set to expand the EU’s border regime, transforming it into a vast digital panopticon aimed at controlling and criminalising vulnerable individuals.
The pact’s extensive system of data collection and automatic exchange creates, in fact, a chilling regime of mass surveillance. Biometric data, including facial images, will be harvested from migrants as young as six and stored for up to a decade, accessible to police forces across the EU.
Newly introduced screening procedures will subject all irregular arrivals, including asylum seekers, to intrusive security checks and assessments, potentially using automated and AI-based decision-making. Personal data will be cross-checked against a sprawling network of national and international databases, raising the spectre of transnational repression of human rights defenders.
The pact also opens the door to invasive practices like the extraction of mobile phone data, potentially violating privacy and eroding trust in asylum procedures. The increased use of remote interviews and videoconferencing further isolates vulnerable individuals and raises concerns about the fairness of the process.
The pact’s screening and border procedures are likely to result in more people, including children and families, being held in prison-like detention facilities equipped with high-tech surveillance systems. The increased use of surveillance and monitoring technologies at internal borders, such as drones and thermal imaging cameras, raises the risk of racial profiling and facilitates public pushback.
Furthermore, the pact’s vague and undefined terms, such as “national security risk” and “public security threat,” open the door for discriminatory practices based on nationality, race, and ethnicity.
The pact’s provisions lay the groundwork for a future wherein automated profiling, predictive algorithms, and lie-detector tests become the norm in migration control. The EU’s own Artificial Intelligence Act, with its lenient framework for law enforcement and migration control, raises alarms about the potential for unchecked surveillance and discrimination. The use of border surveillance technologies like remote biometric identification, drones, and thermal cameras is likely to expand, further entrenching the EU as a fortress against those seeking safety and opportunity.
The EU Migration Pact is a dangerous step towards a surveillance state for migrants. As it is designed now, it will likely erode fundamental rights, normalise digital surveillance, and perpetuate a repressive approach to migration policy: civil society organisations, human rights advocates, and concerned citizens must unite to resist this dystopian future.
A Path still paved with obstacles and uncertainties
Even within the EU, support for the pact is far from unanimous. Poland and Hungary outright reject it, while Germany, the EU’s largest recipient of asylum seekers, harbours significant reservations. German states, burdened with managing the influx of refugees, are demanding greater solidarity from other member states, solidarity that they feel the pact has failed to deliver.
Not to mention that the rise of far-right sentiments in Germany, fuelled by the overwhelmed reception system, has further hardened political stances, and the main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), is already advocating for externalising asylum processing, a model Italy has recently adopted with Albania (a model that has thus far proven to be undesirable and ineffective).
Meanwhile, NGOs are gearing up for legal battles, challenging provisions like the “non-entry” scenario for border procedures and limited legal aid for those affected. The pact’s future in the courts is uncertain, adding another layer of complexity to its implementation.
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