Asylum

When the Taliban put a bounty on Afghan director Hassan Fazili’s head, he was forced to flee the country with his wife and two young daughters. He captured the family’s uncertain journey at first hand, documenting their harrowing trek across numerous borders.

In contrast to many declarations that Italy should not be left to face the challenges of mass boat arrivals from North Africa alone, the New Pact's proposals if anything renew the obsolete “Dublin system”.

Despite its tough public rhetoric, the Polish government might turn out to be more flexible behind closed doors regarding the New Pact, to prevent embarrassing defeats on issues that are far more important from a domestic policy point of view, such as the rule of law.

In Czechia, debates about the EU's New Pact focus only on border protection, return and detention, rather than discussing more relevant proposals on legal migration, integration and inclusion.

In mid-September 2020, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke out strongly in favour of a human and humane approach to the common EU Asylum Policy. Her lofty promises did not, however, survive very long.

On 23 September, the European Commission tabled the “New Pact on Migration and Asylum”. An interview with MEP and migration policy spokesperson of the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament, Erik Marquardt, on the future of European asylum and migration.

Unless conditions in poor countries improve drastically, their citizens will continue to seek a better future elsewhere, even under the pretext of requiring international protection.

The EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum intends to sustain EU-Turkey partnership with same old political incentives rather than new responsibility-sharing mechanisms. The Pact will thus promote securitisation in the Mediterranean without generating meaningful change.

With the New Pact on Migration and Asylum the European Commission intends to square the circle – but does not succeed. An analysis from a legal perspective.

In Tunisia, the EU Migration Pact is received with diplomatic silence from politicians, apathy from the Tunisian authorities and powerless indignation from the civil society. This sobering pact only confirms once again for many Tunisians that the EU migration policy is a one-way affair.