Migration: Sharp tones before meeting of interior ministers on asylum policy

Before a possible agreement of the EU states on a common European asylum policy, both supporters and opponents of the reform plans tried again vehemently to influence the federal government.

The day before the decisive meeting, the FDP migration politician Ann-Veruschka Jurisch campaigned for the reform. “As much as there is a right to asylum and constitutional procedures and must be protected, there is no unrestricted right to enter and be admitted to the EU and Germany,” said the member of the Bundestag on Wednesday. “The federal government supports the proposals for a massive tightening of EU asylum law, although they contradict the coalition agreement diametrically,” criticized MP Clara Bünger (left).

The EU interior ministers are discussing the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which has been controversial for years, this Thursday in Luxembourg. Among other things, it is about whether there should be preliminary checks on asylum applications at the EU’s external borders. The federal government wants to ensure that minors under the age of 18 and families with children are exempt from these procedures.

Most of those seeking protection from three countries

As reported by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), in the first five months of this year, 125,556 people applied for asylum for the first time. That was almost 77 percent more than in the same period last year. Most of those seeking protection came from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey.

Meanwhile, activists from SOS Humanity protested in front of the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin. Representatives of the organization that rescues migrant boats in distress in the Mediterranean submitted a petition calling on the German government to launch a coordinated European rescue program. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) should oppose “the trend towards the devaluation of European fundamental and human rights and the erosion of constitutional principles” and not support the planned reform.

The German district association spoke out in favor of the planned changes. The president of the municipal umbrella organization, Reinhard Sager (CDU), told the newspapers of the Funke media group: “We are backing the Federal Minister of the Interior with the aim of achieving fairer burden-sharing between the member states within the EU and limiting irregular migration.”

Not compatible with human rights obligations?

The managing director of the UN children’s fund Unicef ​​in Germany, Christian Schneider, said it was “an important step that the federal government wants to campaign at EU level for all children seeking protection within the meaning of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, whether in families or unaccompanied to be exempted from the planned border procedures”. The German Institute for Human Rights warned: “A system that primarily relies on deterrence and the outsourcing of asylum checks to the external borders or to supposedly safe third countries outside the EU is not compatible with Germany’s refugee and human rights obligations.”

Juso chairwoman Jessica Rosenthal said of the plans for these proceedings, which should be completed within a few weeks: “Well, I don’t think much of it because I’m quite sure that there will be prison-like conditions, that there will be human rights violations,” said them on Deutschlandfunk.

Regarding the demand by the Greens and the SPD to exclude minors between the ages of 12 and 17 from the planned border procedures, EPP leader Manfred Weber said: “Smugglers are encouraged to target families and younger people because they are de facto a guarantee have to be able to stay in Europe.” The CSU politician warned in the Rheinische Post newspaper that this would “not protect young people, but rather put them at greater risk”.

Migration researchers in Germany criticized the reform plans. “The major reform will deepen the migration policy crisis and divide Europe,” said Bernd Kasparek from the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM). Therefore, from the scientists’ point of view, it would be better to let the negotiations fail now. They suggested a kind of European asylum agency. This could bring refugees and host countries together with a matching system. The Member States could formulate interests and requirements, and the asylum seekers could state their wishes and existing social connections in European countries.