This morning a deflated rubber dinghy was found off the Italian coast line, with a single desperate Eritrean on board. The boat
used to carry 55 people, but 54 did not survive the 15-day journey across the
Mediterranean.
My home town of Leipzig has recently experienced
a heated discussion about the relocation of 300 asylum seekers – people from
the new location’s neighbourhood feel that their presence will lower the
quality of life in the area. I have the feeling that someone hasn’t quite
understood that refugees aren’t social parasites, but human beings who saw no
alternative than to leave their homeland. By the way, according to the Geneva
Convention of Refugees every human being has a right to asylum, and ironically
those same people who complain about asylum seekers are usually those, who say
that other religions disrespect human rights.
A fair asylum system doesn’t solve the problem
of the widespread stigmatisation of asylum seekers, but it would contribute immensely
to allowing refugees the opportunity to lead a dignified life in Europe.
Unfortunately it seems unrealistic to discuss the general abolition of borders
right now, which in my opinion would be the ideal solution. Furthermore, I
would plead for the abolition of citizenship as well, but that also doesn’t
appear to be immediately implementable. For that reason, I have five more ‘realistic’
suggestions*: the introduction of a European burden-sharing system; the
establishment of a European asylum agency; the imposition of sanctions, if
minimum-standards for the treatment of refugees aren’t met; the granting of a
work permit and a general detention ban.
One of the basic problems of the European asylum
system is the so-called Dublin-II Regulation, which determines which Member
State is responsible for handling an asylum application – it is usually the one
where a refugee first enters EU territory. This leads to a disproportionally
high amount of applications along the EU’s external borders. Dublin-II should
be replaced by a more suitable regulation, which shares out asylum seekers
among the Member States according to a set of specific criteria. The example of
Germany shows that such a system could work, as a burden-sharing mechanism
already exists between the Länder.
Among these criteria should be the GDP per capita, the Member State’s capacity
to host asylum seekers, and the current economic situation, which may for
instance be established using GDP growth rates. This would immensely relieve
countries like Malta, Cyprus or Greece, and should not pose a challenge for
Europe, as we are merely talking about 300,000 applicants per year (about 0.06%
of the EU population). The wishes of the asylum applicants themselves should be
taken into consideration as much as possible, especially because many already
have family ties in some Member States.
Another problem that Europe is currently
struggling with is the fact that success rates of an asylum application vary
vastly. While it is nearly impossible to file a successful application in
Greece, Sweden boasts success rates of around 30%. It is obvious that the
different Member States’ immigration offices work very differently, which is
why one should centralise their authority. A European asylum agency could
handle all asylum applications and thus guarantee to grant equal chances for
everybody, independently of national political circumstances. This agency could
at the same time handle the burden-sharing mechanism.
The humanitarian conditions in European refugee
camps reach from acceptable to disastrous. Upon arrival in Greece, one may
expect certain homelessness, while Sweden or Germany allow for relatively good
accommodation. After a quite short period of time, and even while an asylum
application is still being handled, families are resettled into their own
apartments. What is needed is a minimum standard of accommodation that reflects
the high humanitarian standards Europe set itself and others. To implement
this, a European asylum fund ought to be set up, which can be used to subsidise
projects working towards this goal. Should some Member States choose not to
abide by the established rules, sanctions should be imposed (sanctions that are
higher than the few thousands of euros that Greece and Belgium recently had to
pay).
Black labour is often the only way for refugees
to finance their lives in Europe. The Member States tolerate and indirectly
support this condition, because working legally is often only possible after an
asylum application has been handled, which sometimes takes many years. It
should therefore be possible to work legally immediately upon submission of an
asylum application, both to prevent crime and to allow for an acceptable
quality of life.
Finally, the EU needs to impose a general ban on
detention of asylum seekers. It is absurd to imprison someone for 18 months (as
is the case in Malta) just because they have entered the EU.
I am convinced that the implementation of this
obviously incomplete list would massively improve the condition of asylum seekers
in Europe. Of course those suggestions do not improve the situation in the
countries of origin, they do not cause walls to fall, and they do not make it
easier for people to reach Europe. I wish it was possible to get Frontex to
help refugees come to Europe, instead of hindering them. I wish that Europe’s
leaders would develop a moral consciousness, instead of trampling on human
rights. I also wish that we would understand that immigration is an important
part of solving the demographic problem that Europe is facing. Until such a
paradigm shift is complete, much can nevertheless be done, and I believe that
the above suggestions would be a good start.
Harald Köpping
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* My suggestions are inspired by a meeting of
the working group of grantees “Europaforum” of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.
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