The Migrant Crisis Continues: The EU-Afghan Agreement

Last week, during a period of increased tension in European politics, the European Union (EU) signed a controversial, and arguably anti-humanitarian, deal with the Afghan government to curb migrant flows to Europe. By threatening to withhold vital aid funding to Afghanistan, the EU was able to pressure the aid-dependent country to sign an agreement which permits an unlimited number of rejected Afghani refugee claimants, including women and children, to be deported to their home country. Some of these migrants are being forced to return ‘home’ to a country they have never inhabited, having been born and raised in countries like Syria and Iran due to regional conflicts. While Brussels denies that it pressured its co-signer into the deal, Afghan officials expressed how they felt cornered into the agreement. Some even outright refused to sign the EU-Afghan agreement, leaving the task to their deputies.

Unfortunately, the EU-Afghan agreement is only the most recent in a series of questionable deals aimed at addressing the pressing migrant crisis. Recall, for example, the infamous EU-Turkey agreement that emerged last spring. Facing both domestic and EU-wide fears that migrant numbers would rise again in the summer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel negotiated the deal to curb migrant flows. This re-admittance agreement detailed that in exchange for 3 billion euros of aid funding and promises to revisit Turkish EU membership, along with visa-free travel for Turkish nationals, the EU would be able to send back migrants taking the popular Eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey into Greece. As expected, the agreement began to collapse within a matter of months, but it served to deter many migrants from embarking on the dangerous journey across the Aegean Sea and Europe has seen an abatement in the number of migrants to Greece.

One of the main issues that drives these controversial deals is that migrants inside the Schengen Area are often left unprotected and stateless. While EU nationals and visa-holders are able to move freely within Europe’s borders, migrants are not afforded the same mobility privileges. During the United Kingdom’s (UK) referendum on its continued EU membership, one of the most popular arguments used by the ‘Remain’ side was that European institutions protected a plethora of human rights. While this is true, it sadly only applies to citizens of member states. The problem lies in the fact there is an absence of a comprehensive European-wide asylum policy. Instead, the EU functions on a patchwork of legislation from its 28 member states.

As per the Dublin Regulations, refugee applications are supposed to be registered and decided upon in the claimants’ country of entry, but the system has collapsed. The majority of migrants arrive at Europe’s southern borders and have no desire to remain in Italy or Greece, instead preferring countries like Germany and France who have more favourable asylum policies. These overburdened Mediterranean states are more than willing to usher migrants northwards where they are then subject to further detainment, long wait times, and in the event that their application is rejected, face deportation back to their home country.

While the 1951 Refugee Convention protects migrants from being deported to unsafe countries in which their lives or freedom would be in peril, European states have devised (albeit differing) lists of safe countries of origin and safe third countries to facilitate the legal deportation of migrants. Safe countries of origin are designated states which have a democratic system and generally do not engage in torture, persecution, and violence. However, states such as the UK liberally apply this criteria and have designated Sierra Leone and Liberia to be safe. The concept of safe third countries empowers states to return migrants to ‘safe countries’ in which they were previously granted protection, such as Turkey.

In the summer of 2015, Germany effectively suspended the Dublin Regulation when it opened its borders to 1 million refugees in response to Greece’s inability to cope with the mass influx of migrants. Member states had tried, and failed, to implement a refugee relocation scheme. Under this system, refugee quotas would be allocated to states via a model of specific distribution criteria including the country’s GDP, unemployment rates, and would take into account the refugee’s language skills and social ties. Unfortunately, the proposal was quickly rejected by Eastern European states. While some countries agreed the system, a small number of migrants have actually been distributed amongst member countries. Currently, Greek islands such as Lesbos have become home to sprawling refugee camps, whilst countries like Hungary and the United Kingdom have begun building walls to keep migrants out.

The ongoing crisis has bolstered the support for dangerous populist radical right parties within Europe whose primary policies are centred around Euroscepticism and anti-immigration. Currently, the unstable Danish government relies on the support of the Danish People’s Party. In France, the hyper-nationalist Front National has experienced a surge in support on the heels of the upcoming 2017 presidential election. Even Sweden, a country that was once a haven for refugees, has passed a law to require ID checks on the Swedish-Danish border. This legislation is aimed at curbing migrant flows and effectively undermines one of the core principles of the EU –free movement.

Thus, it was amid this volatile political and social environment that the EU brokered its deal with Turkey. However, while the agreement was created with the purpose of at dispelling migrant fears, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) used it to garner support for the Britain to leave the EU. In the final days of the campaign UKIP focused their referendum campaign on the issue of Turkish migrants. While Turkish entry entry into the EU is unlikely and is habitually used as a bargaining tool by the EU, UKIP was successful in inciting British fears of an influx of Muslim migrants, and Britain voted to leave the EU.

Predictably, Merkel, anticipating the forthcoming German federal election and a decline in popular support, has been forced to relax her migrant-friendly position. She has pursued foreign policy deals with the objective of securing the external borders of Europe, but this strategy is failing. The current conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa do not appear to have an end in sight. Europe must develop an internal migrant strategy aimed at actually addressing and redistributing the influx of refugees. It is clear that the EU cannot rely on questionable agreements with less than democratic governments that only serve as a temporary solution to the massive humanitarian and social issue that is the current European migrant crisis.

The featured image by Óglaigh na hÉireann is licensed under CC BY 2.0