Tiroler Tageszeitung, editorial from December 21, 2023. By Gabriele Starck: “Asylum agreement only a symbolic act”.

2023-12-20 23:05:33

Innsbruck (OTS) – The years-long and largely undignified struggle for asylum reform has weakened the EU’s external impact. The agreement now reached is intended to correct the picture. But it is not a solution to the problems.

It can be applauded. The EU states and the European Parliament have agreed on an asylum reform. Given the years of struggle, this must be considered a success. But that’s it.
The new regulation is more than overdue. The fact that the Dublin procedure, according to which asylum seekers have to be registered where they enter the EU, does not work, became clear at the latest in 2015, when more than a million people moved to and through Europe. This regulation should have been changed immediately out of solidarity with the overwhelmed states at the EU’s external borders, but in fact it was dead anyway.
However, a reform failed due to a lack of solidarity within the EU. So responsibility was passed back and forth, but asylum seekers without refugee status were not deported. Because that turned out to be almost impossible because of the different asylum laws and without the goodwill of third countries.
Instead of working on it, people allowed themselves to be driven by the right-wingers, who were stoking fear, inciting people and thus fishing for voters. Under pressure from some anti-democratic forces, states gradually tightened their laws to make it as difficult as possible for migrants to gain a foothold here. The most recent example of this is France, where an extremely restrictive immigration law was passed on Tuesday evening.
Wanting to prevent unregulated immigration to Europe is legitimate. In principle, it is also understandable to let people with little prospect of refugee status wait for their asylum procedure in camps at the external borders. However, only in compliance with all human rights standards. And that is utopian.
It is also unrealistic that Italy, Spain or Greece want to and will build these reception camps. Or that intra-European solidarity is growing just because there is a newly formulated mechanism that is supposed to ensure a fair distribution of those seeking protection and/or costs. Above all, the agreement announced on Wednesday is not a solution, but only a symbolic act.
The asylum reform will not stop people from seeking their happiness in Europe. Nor will it deter you from taking the life-threatening journey. Anyone who has made it to the reception camp despite the hardship at home, the journey through the desert and/or across the sea and the torment along the way will not shy away from it.
The EU will have to look for solutions in the countries from which people are fleeing. Instead, it has continued to weaken its influence in the world through internal disunity.