On Thursday 15 March, Vincent Cochetel, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) special envoy for the central Mediterranean, provided an update in Brussels about the situation involving migrants trapped in Libya. It has been possible to repatriate some of these migrants to the countries of origin or to Niger (see other article). On this occasion, he provided answers to a number of more general questions put to him by EUROPE regarding the European Union's policy in this area. (Interview conducted by Solenn Paulic)
Agence Europe: The UNHCR launched an appeal in September 2017 to resettle 40,000 refugees wanting to get into Europe by way of the central Mediterranean route but who were blocked in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Niger. Has the EU done its share?
Vincent Cochetel: So far we have received 24,443 general resettlement promises of which 7,190 have been proposed by European countries (450 places have been promised by Europe for Libya alone). This makes up a third of all promises. We are therefore not there yet.
On the subject of resettlement, the EU is still concentrating on the problem of Syrian refugees and it obviously still has to continue doing this. To this end, there is a comprehensive range of machinery in place, especially with regard to the agreement it reached with Turkey. There is a resettlement effort to Syria and the Middle East and the majority of promises have therefore focused on this situation.
It is more complicated for Libya and neighbouring countries because in this case the resettlement mechanism involves 15 countries.
Europe, on the other hand, has only provided 55 places in response to the emergency appeal (launched by the UNHCR in December to resettle 1,300 particularly vulnerable refugees blocked in Libya, by the end of March - Niger has taken in more than 1,000 of them). Fifty-five over three months... Europe can do better than that.
At the European Parliament, the discussion on the “resettlement” regulation raised a number of questions regarding the fact that the Council might water down resettlement places and substitute them with humanitarian admissions, which are known to provide fewer rights to the people taken in. Does that worry you?
The important thing for us is that people have a certain number of rights and that they do not just receive temporary status. I am thinking, for example, about the Iraqis arriving in Sweden who were able to launch start-ups.
With the resettlement places being limited, we are therefore in favour of new channels for legal access. We can already get the family reunifications operating but circular systems are also being thought about that will help migrants come and work for six months, for example. We also want to develop a number of pilot projects, for example, with universities as well as a private sponsoring systems. A partnership with a municipality or church and obviously with the authorisation of the competent authorities. This is being done in a lot of cases in Canada and Australia and we are also seeing it in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The Commission proposed 14 March as the date for reforming visa policy and getting tougher with third countries that fail to sufficiently cooperate in taking back their nationals (see EUROPE 11981). Isn't this a little harsh?
The UNHCR has nothing to say about visa policy, which remains a prerogative of the states.
Nonetheless, the fact that we are not tackling these return problems is creating a real danger for asylum policy. This is a major concern for us and there are countries that are not playing the game despite the fact that they receive European aid.
It can also be pointed out that taking back nationals who are residing illegally, is a legal obligation. There are also countries that do not want to take them back and those that cannot do so because they do not have the capacities to readmit these people.
It is in this area that the EU should be investing. It should help these countries work on the identification and civil registration of these people. There are countries where this registration is not working at all. Gambia has flagged up these difficulties. In West Africa, there are millions of people without ID documents. These actually constitute 200 million out of 300 million of these people!
This work on civil status was mentioned in an article in the Valetta Plan in 2015 but only in relation with returns. Civil registration is, furthermore, also required for everything! The EU seriously has to engage in helping these countries undertake these registrations. The Trust Fund for Africa really has to support this effort because this helps the EU just as it helps African countries.
The question is, why is this not being done?