The new Migration and Asylum Pact will continue to trap refugees in the Mediterranean south

 

28 December 2023, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

The political agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum is anything but a cause for celebration. It does not promote solidarity with the countries of the southern Mediterranean, nor does it guarantee solidarity with those in need of protection. More specifically, the new Pact:

• Keeps intact a cornerstone principle of the Dublin Regulation, which designates the first country of arrival [into the EU] as the member state responsible for each applicant. In other words, refugees seeking asylum in the EU will continue to be trapped in the countries of the Mediterranean South, among them Cyprus.
• Fails to introduce what the Left in Europe and states like Cyprus have been asking for years. Namely, the establishment of a system of distribution and accommodation of refugees in all EU member states without exception, according to the population and the capabilities of each member state. On the contrary, the new Pact will allow member states to take no responsibility for hosting refugees and to buy off this obligation by paying the frontline states in money or in kind to take on their burden.
• Increases the EU’s dependence on third countries such as Turkey and Libya for the management of the migration issue and control of its borders. The experience of the EU-Turkey agreement demonstrates how Erdogan has been blackmailing EU states with the refugee issue, at the same time as he was and is still receiving billions of euros from the EU in handouts.
• Diminishes the framework of protection and the respect for human rights defined by asylum law, as well as in much-vaunted European principles and values. At the same time, it paves the way for more crackdowns to be launched against refugees, a mixture that will boost the activities of human traffickers and slave traders, as well as multiply tragedies at sea.

AKEL stresses that the new Pact, which is headed for approval in the coming months, does not provide solutions for states like Cyprus in the management of migration and asylum, and in some aspects it is expected that the situation will deteriorate.

28.12.2023