On Tuesday 31 August in Brussels, the Interior Ministers of the EU and Schengen countries adopted a joint declaration in which they committed themselves to increasing their aid, particularly financial aid, to Afghanistan’s neighbours and to international agencies working, among other things, on the care of displaced persons.
However, they refused to commit themselves at this stage to specific offers to receive refugees in the EU, arguing that no major departure flows have been recorded to date and wishing above all to guard against any call for irregular immigration, as Berlin and Copenhagen have explicitly mentioned.
In this joint declaration, which was at one time threatened with rejection by Luxembourg, the Interior Ministers focused on the security aspect, as they did not want to relive the episode from 2015 and “uncontrolled immigration” at the common borders, explained French Minister Gérald Darmanin on his arrival in Brussels.
Security and the prevention of terrorist threats dominated part of the meeting, said Slovenian Interior Minister Aleš Hojs at the end of the day, for whom the “main responsibility is to protect EU citizens from terrorist attacks”.
The joint declaration thus states, in line with earlier draft declarations, that “the EU and its Member States stand determined to act jointly to prevent the recurrence of uncontrolled large-scale illegal migration movements faced in the past”. Potential refugees will also mainly need to receive protection in the region.
“The EU and its Member States will do their utmost to ensure that the situation in Afghanistan does not lead to new security threats for EU citizens”, the text adds. And “[all] efforts must be pursued to ensure that the Taliban regime ceases all ties and practices with international terrorism and that Afghanistan does not become once again a sanctuary for terrorists and organised crime groups. The EU will use all its available tools to closely monitor and respond to developments on the ground that might impact its security”.
Anticipating a crisis
It is this language, considered to be overly focused on security, that was rejected on Monday evening, 30 August, by Luxembourg’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jean Asselborn, who still threatened on Tuesday morning to block the text.
The foreign minister said it was wrong for the EU not to follow the example of the UK, which has announced 20,000 resettlement places for Afghans. “The EU needs to send a signal” and “give hope”. “The Afghans should not only see the UK”, he said on his arrival in Brussels.
In particular, Luxembourg wanted concrete and rapid commitments and argued for the inclusion in the declaration of a high-level conference on the resettlement of Afghan refugees. A reference to this event was introduced into the text for a while, but then deleted again.
But the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, had already anticipated the Luxembourger. The same day, she announced a high-level conference in September to discuss with international partners resettlement commitments exclusively for Afghan refugees, in particular “women and children”, but also other threatened persons, such as lawyers, judges, or journalists, she explained at the end of the meeting.
These commitments will be in addition to the 30,000 resettlement places already planned for 2021 and 2022 for refugees from all regions of the world, but “it is not yet possible to give figures”, the Commissioner also said.
For Ms Johansson, the meeting will be an opportunity to better anticipate a possible migration crisis, “even if the EU is better prepared than in 2015”, and will aim to “prevent people from going down a dangerous road”.
However, a number of Member States did not see it that way, believing it risky to talk about precise figures that could send “false signals”, according to Copenhagen, and open the door to illegal immigration.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer also raised this risk. “People particularly worthy of protection have the right to resettlement” in Germany, but it would not be wise to “talk about numbers now, because numbers trigger a pull effect”, he said. This risk is all the more important in Berlin as the country is facing an important election in a few weeks.
Link to the final declaration: https://bit.ly/3Drftky (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)