The past year has left no illusions. Political decision-makers and most of the European public want to rid Europe of refugees - regardless of the consequences and even at the cost of the human rights on which the European Union has grown.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
In December 2024, Human Rights Watch published a report concluding that Poland is breaking the law on its border with Belarus. This, of course, is not surprising - similar conclusions have previously been drawn by Amnesty International and national rights organizations, among others.
"Poland's inhumane and illegal expulsion of people seeking safety is contrary to its obligations under national and EU law and the fundamentals of humanitarianism," said Lydia Gall, an expert on Europe and Central Asia at HRW. And while such an assessment from a recognized international organization just a few years ago could have been met with a strong reaction from EU bodies, today there is tacit acquiescence.
Almost simultaneously with the publication of the HRW report, the European Commission endorsed Prime Minister Donald Tusk's idea to restrict the right to apply for asylum protection. While the approval applies only to countries on the EU's eastern border and only in exceptional situations, such wording gives the rulers considerable room for interpretation.
Tusk presented a proposal for such a solution in mid-October at the European Council summit in Brussels. State leaders expressed their enthusiasm, and the conclusions of the meeting were unequivocal - the Community must not allow Russia or Belarus to abuse the right to asylum. And while assurances were given that "effective protection" of the Union's external borders must go hand in hand with compliance with international law, the reality turns out to be quite different.
Migration outsourcing
The Polish government's actions mark a new trend in European migration policy, as does the plan of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Italian Brothers party. Her flagship project to return migrants to Italian reception centers built in Albania was to begin in October.
The centers stand ready, but a court in Rome has decided that it is not legal to send people who want to apply for international protection in Italy to a non-EU country. The point is that in the Albanian centers, the asylum procedure would take much less time than it normally would.
Only those from so-called safe countries would be sent to Albania, but Meloni considers countries that are not so in the eyes of the EU Court of Justice to be safe. This was brought to the attention of the court in Rome, as the Italian prime minister's list included Egypt and Bangladesh, among others.
Until the Italian government and the court come to an agreement, the Albanian centers will stand empty (the first two groups of migrants who went to Albania were returned to Italy within days). We know that the situation will not change for at least a few more months.
Questions hang in the air - what if Meloni finds a way to restart his project? Will migrant outsourcing become common practice for EU countries? After all, the UK and Danish governments had already tried to push similar projects through, entering into an agreement with Rwanda, where applicants for international protection would be sent.
Once the applications were approved, refugees would be settled in Rwanda permanently - a difference from Meloni's idea, under which those with refugee status would be transferred to Italy - and those not granted protection would be deported to their countries of origin.
In the case of the UK, which was much closer to implementing the plan than Denmark, the Supreme Court stood in the way. In December 2023, it ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country (even if there is no armed conflict there), and besides, there is no way to guarantee that the government in Kigali will not send refugees back to their home countries where they are in danger. The Danish plan, on the other hand, stalled even at the planning stage itself, and in the face of public criticism it was eventually abandoned.
Despite these setbacks, EU countries are testing further ways to curb irregular migration. Especially since this is what more and more male and female citizens are demanding - even at the cost of the human rights on which the European Union has grown.
Europe is turning right
Over the past year, nationalist parties have won elections in the Netherlands (Party for Freedom, PVV) and Austria (Freedom Party of Austria, FPÖ), among others. The right maintained power in Italy and Hungary, and in the eastern German states the extremely nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party achieved surprisingly good results. Each of these winning parties stands firmly against migration.
Right-wing populists, who argue that migrants must be stopped at all costs, are deftly silent on the fact that irregular migration to Europe has anyway declined by almost 40 percent compared to 2023. They are also silent on the fact that the EU needs foreign workers, without whom national economies will not cope in the next decades. And those workers are not infrequently drawn to work from the same countries from which they are trying to restrict immigration.
On the one hand, right-wing governments are exerting increasing pressure on migration policies throughout the community. On the other - people fleeing war, persecution, hunger or lack of prospects in their own country have become pawns in the East's political game with the West. More and more actions that violate their rights are being justified as "hybrid warfare."
This argument has been used not only by the Polish, but also by the Finnish government, which as recently as late 2023 decided to close all border crossings with Russia, severely limiting people's ability to apply for protection.
"Since the hybrid attack carried out by Belarus in November 2021 against Latvia, Poland and Lithuania, we all know how Putin and his allies instrumentalize migrants to test our defenses and try to destabilize the situation in these countries. Now Putin is focusing on Finland." - EC chief Ursula von der Leyen said in support of the decision by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo of the liberal-conservative National Coalition.
Finland's restrictions do, however, provide some opportunities to apply for asylum, and compared to other member states, Finland remains - after all - more liberal towards migration. This is in contrast to, for example, the aforementioned Netherlands, whose Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber has announced "the strictest migration policy ever." At the same time, fears are being raised about whether the increasingly tightening of the Union's states will lead to its disintegration.
Border patrols
Questions about the future of the EU as an economic community arose after Germany introduced police controls at all of the country's external borders in September 2024, de facto suspending freedom of movement in the Schengen area. This was a decision by German Interior Ministry chief Nancy Faeser, who said that restricting irregular immigration into the country was necessary to protect the public from "Islamic terror and serious crime." Indeed, the regulation was introduced after a knife attack at a festival in Solingen. A 26-year-old Syrian man confessed to killing three people and wounding several others.
The Schengen law, while providing for the free movement of people and goods within the EU, provides for solutions such as the one applied by Germany if justified on security grounds. Since 2015, the beginning of the so-called "migration crisis," many countries have taken advantage of this option, repeatedly extending the time of control for months at a time.
"MEPs have repeatedly opposed the frequent reinstatement of controls on the grounds that it impedes the free movement of people within the EU." - reads on the European Parliament website. In practice, German controls have proved to be random and not particularly restrictive of the mobility of Europeans and European women, but such a prolonged condition could undermine market integration.
Therefore, in May 2024, the European Parliament introduced a restriction: internal border controls must not last longer than three years. Despite this decision, Germany's border clampdown has angered its neighbors. Austria, for example, has announced that it will not accept foreigners who are turned back by the Bundespolizei.
Regardless of how long patrols will guard border crossings, Minister Faeser's declarations are a symbol of change. They testify to how far Germany has moved away from Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door policy - and the path that German and European migration policy has taken over the past decade.
Controversial pact
Decisions to strengthen Fortress Europe are being made not only in individual member states, but also at the EU level. One of the key developments was the April 2024 signing of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, widely criticized by rights organizations.
Negotiations over the final draft lasted almost a decade. It was opposed mainly - though not exclusively - by Poland and Hungary, as the pact implies solidarity with countries that are under particular "migration pressure." In the end, EU countries came to an agreement, leaving themselves a choice as to the form of support - it could be relocation of protection seekers, financial assistance or alternative solidarity measures, primarily operational support.
When policymakers finally reached an agreement, the Union trumpeted success. "The migration system will be fairer and stronger and will bring concrete benefits in practice. The new rules will increase the efficiency of the European asylum system and deepen solidarity among member states," said Nicole de Moor, Belgium's Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration.
Among other things, the pact includes an extension of the "safe third country" principle, which allows expedited deportation to the home country. It was this provision that Giorgia Meloni eagerly took advantage of when setting up centers in Albania.
According to more than 50 NGOs that signed a joint appeal to the EU, the pact is a major step backward in terms of human rights protection. They point out, for example, the racial profiling of those seeking protection and the development of surveillance technology. They also point to the arbitrary designation of countries of origin as safe, which could expose migrants and migrant women to further persecution and danger upon their return.
In parallel with the implementation of the pact, for which countries have until 2026, the EU is signing further agreements with countries such as Tunisia and Egypt (in 2024), and before that with Turkey, Morocco and Libya, from which people on the move are heading for the Old Continent. The premise in each case is the same - authoritarian leaders receive millions of euros to supposedly support socioeconomic development. In return, they are supposed to stop people from reaching Europe. Implicitly - at any cost.
What does the future hold for Syrians?
In 2022, the Union emphatically showed that it is following double standards in its migration policy. As hundreds more died in the Mediterranean, and the first fatalities were reported on the Polish-Belarusian border, millions of people fleeing Russia's aggression found refuge in the Commonwealth.
Not counting Ukrainians, the largest group of refugees and refugee women in Europe are Syrians. When rebels seized Damascus in a matter of days in December 2024 and forced dictator Bashar al-Assad to flee, EU leaders didn't wait a moment. Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Italy immediately halted processing of asylum applications from the country's citizens.
Although the situation in the until recently authoritarian state is precarious and a massive humanitarian crisis continues there, Austria has gone a step further and is drafting an "orderly repatriation and deportation program for Syria." European Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker responded with a reminder that "Each asylum decision should be taken on a case-by-case basis, after considering the person's application."
In the context of the controversial migration pact and agreements with authoritarian states, Keersmaecker's words appear to be nothing more than a PR stunt. The past year has left no illusions that both political decision-makers and the majority of the European public want to rid Europe of refugees - regardless of the consequences.
