On Wednesday 6 April in Strasbourg, MEPs wanted to put the spotlight back on the issue of violations of migrants’ rights at external borders and pushback practices and hoped that the solidarity shown by Member States towards refugees from Ukraine would not mask these problems.
The debate focused on recent allegations of pushbacks at the external borders of Member States, as documented in a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The latter has identified “more than 540 incidents in Greece since 2020”, said the Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli.
UNHCR and NGOs also mentioned practices of violations of migrants’ rights at the Polish-Belarusian border.
On Thursday 7 April, the Council of Europe also denounced, in a report, the widespread pushback of refugees at European borders and called on its member states to put an end to these “human rights violations. Pushbacks have become a systematic pan-European problem”.
Croatia, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria, France and Spain are among those criticised.
The EU has always respected “its principles” by, for example, granting protection to Syrians in 2015 and by committing to resettlement programmes for vulnerable refugees, with member countries committing to 65,000 resettlement places in 2021 and 2022 for Afghan refugees, among others, the Commissioner argued. “But the situation is not perfect”, the Commissioner added, as the Commission is “deeply concerned” about all these allegations. While Member States are obligated to protect the EU’s external border, they must, at the same time, protect the rights of migrants and allow them to apply for asylum. “This balance must be respected”, the Commissioner said. The Commission takes these reports “very seriously” and advocates the establishment of “independent monitoring mechanisms”, as proposed in the ‘screening of migrants’ regulation.
The Commission has also launched investigations into the Polish and Lithuanian laws adopted after the first arrivals of migrants via Belarus, the Commissioner recalled. However, these investigations have not yet been completed.
The elected MEPs were not convinced. For the Dutch MEP Tineke Strik (Greens/EFA), there should be no room for “double standards” in the reception of refugees and that all refugees should be brought “under the same regime” when they are fleeing violence. “The right to seek asylum is violated in many countries”, with discrepancies even within the same country, such as Poland, which takes in refugees from Ukraine en masse “and turns away migrants from Belarus a few kilometres away”.
“In Greece, pushbacks are a daily practice; how can the Commission accept such a violation?”, asked the Dutch MEP.
“In Lampedusa, people are often not even allowed to apply for asylum”, said the Italian MEP, Pietro Bartolo (S&D), and in Poland “people have also been pushbacked from Ukraine”, he added.
According to the Greek MEP from the EPP group, Eliza Vozemberg, Greece follows the law “to the letter” and these allegations of pushbacks were swept aside by an investigation by the country’s independent transparency authority, whose findings were released on 30 March. The Commission is currently analysing these results, concluded Helena Dalli. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)