For a common migration and asylum policy

Submitted by Political Commission 3: External Affairs and Global Governance
Adopted by the Federal Committee in Turku on 21 October 2018. Re-adopted and amended by the online Federal Committee on 26 June 2021. Re-adopted and amended by the Federal Committee on 11 November 2023 in Madrid Spain. 

 

Conflicts, political turmoil, economic disparities as well as climate change generate migration towards Europe. The European Union, so far, proved itself totally unprepared to tackle the human rights violations and humanitarian crisis faced by refugees and migrants. Member States are reacting unilaterally and against the common European interest. Unilateral actions are ineffective and damaging to major European achievements and values, such as the Schengen Agreement, peaceful cooperation between Member States and human rights. The Young European Federalists urges the EU to give a stronger common response to this global challenge, in the field of migration, asylum and border control policies.

 

JEF Europe,

  1. Acknowledging that recent refugee and migration waves have been markedly different in both character and impact on different Member States;
  2. Alarmed by the persisting human rights violations and humanitarian crises faced by migrants and refugees in Europe, especially taking into account wars and instability;
  3. Noting that conflicts, war, human rights abuses, political persecution, lack of perspectives, climate change and growing economic disparities will continue to lead to migrant and refugee arrivals in Europe if these root causes of migration are not seriously addressed;
  4. Acknowledging that the charge of welcoming refugees is left to countries neighbouring conflicts or other humanitarian disasters and that these countries are often hosting numbers far beyond their capacities;
  5. Highlights the need for further effective and tangible solidarity with member states on the Union’s external borders experiencing most of the arrivals to ensure that they can provide the highest standards of dignified immediate reception;
  6. Deploring that the member states have sidelined the EU in migration and have been unwilling to develop a serious common strategy, have been blocking Commission proposals for a common approach and have prioritised a shallow and populist understanding of the “national interest” at the cost of effective and reasonable common migration and asylum policy;
  7. Further deploring that the present decision-making procedures are ineffective and exploitable, allowing a small minority, even a single bad- faith actor, to stall decision-making indefinitely;
  8. Believing that the Schengen area and the freedom of movement are two of the greatest achievements of the EU and that they should not only be preserved, but expanded;
  9. Deploying that the EU is outsourcing migration management flows by setting agreements with third countries – Lybia, Tunisia, and Türkiye
  10. Regretting that the EU has given billions of euros to Türkiye since March 2016 to detain migrants and refugees in degrading and bad conditions on its shores, border regions, temporary accommodation, cities and rural areas, while acknowledging that the agreement helped to control migration streams at its peak;
  11. Deploring the ongoing formal and informal practices of migration externalisation that actively subvert the principle or non-refoulement (including pushbacks), the prime example being that of the EU-Türkiye deal that puts the EU in a weak position and empowers Türkiye to use its role as a “border post” of the European Union to threaten the EU over fallouts in their relationship, for instance regarding Cyprus, democracy or visa liberalisation; Condemns the failed Memorandum of Understanding between the EU and the Tunisia signed in July 2023 which paid little regard to the ongoing gross human rights abuses by the regime against asylum seekers in the country as well as against its own citizen and was signed without consultation with the Council nor the Parliament;
  12. Condemning smugglers of migrants and human traffickers for the inhuman treatment, exploitation and endangerment of innocent lives for purely for financial profit;
  13. Further concerned that this strategy might be more broadly replicated by other countries bordering the EU, instrumentalising refugees and migrants for financial gain and leverage over the EU;
  14. Deeply concerned that some Member States have denied their responsibility, refused to welcome in their ports ships rescuing the lives of migrants and refugees, and sometimes have gone as far as actively repelling ships, putting lives at risk and possibly breaching international law;
  15. Convinced that EU-led search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and in the Aegean Sea are necessary to save lives;
  16. Condemning the criminalisation of NGOs operating in search and rescue activities in the Mediterranean Sea made by several EU Member States’ governments;
  17. Emphasising that the fundamental rights and duties of a human being declared in the European Convention of Human Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 Geneva Convention and Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union must always be respected;
  18. Recognising that various pieces of EU legislation have been adopted in order to create a common asylum policy in line with the objective set out in Article 78 TFEU, including Directive 2011/95 (“Qualifications Directive”) and Directive 2013/33 (“Reception Conditions Directive”);
  19. Welcoming the progress towards adopting the asylum procedure regulation and the asylum and migration management regulation on the side of the Council of the EU

 

JEF Europe, therefore,

  1. Insists on the need for a common EU policy on migration, asylum, subsidiary protection and temporary protection which fully complies with binding obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and respects the non-refoulement principle;
  2. Exhorts the EU to accelerate the phasing out of the Dublin regulations and adopt a true European asylum policy, fully respecting EU values, human rights and art. 78-79-80 TFEU, and relying on solidarity and responsibility sharing as well as on extra assistance to the countries of entry;
  3. Calls on the EU to include a European refugee status for political dissidents in its migration and asylum policies;
  4. Demands that in the future, asylum decisions and decisions on return be taken based on unified EU-wide standards, rather than disparate standards defined at the national level;
  5. Furthermore, calls on the European Commission to consider infringement procedures and financial sanctions against non-compliant Member States in the framework of migration and asylum policies;
  6. Urges the EU to stop using readmission agreements as the main tool to fight against illegal immigration, mostly because this encourages violations of human rights such as the non-refoulement principle guaranteed by the 1951 Geneva Convention;
  7. Calls for an EU policy for the Mediterranean region and beyond, ensuring a broad and intensified cooperation with third countries through the Union for the Mediterranean and other multilateral fora in order to fight human trafficking networks;
  8. Demands that the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) operates on the basis of EU values and ought not be involved in push backs;
  9. Insists that Frontex is tasked with search and rescue in the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea and demands the transformation of Operation Themis in a wider and focused EU search and rescue operation of people in distress;
  10. Invites the EU and its Member States to provide transit countries with extended assistance and further humanitarian supplies to be dedicated to the reception of asylum seekers and refugees;
  11. Calls on the EU to enhance humanitarian legal ways to safely reach the EU, without being forced to rely on illegal human trafficking, such as humanitarian visas to refugees;
  12. Calls for the establishment of common European asylum offices in third countries respecting European standards of treatment and human dignity;
  13. Demands with immediate effect the decriminalisation of private sea rescue by EU states;
  14. Encourages the EU to open legal channels for economic migration;
  15. Demands the EU to further facilitate cross-border mobility for cultural and educational exchanges with Third Country Nationals;
  16. Condemns any proposal regarding migration and asylum policy that relies on building walls and fences, and urges the EU and its Member States to build an open continent instead of a Fortress Europe and internal barriers;
  17. Condemns the instrumentalisation of innocent people, whether they be refugees or economic migrants, by countries such as Belarus and Russia, to create migration crises at the EU’s borders and exert pressure against the EU;
  18. Demands that the Schengen Agreements are safeguarded at all times, borders are reopened where they have been closed and border controls are put to an end without delay;
  19. Calls on the EU to withdraw from the EU-Türkiye deal and to not use it as a model for deals with other countries, because it does not fully respect the 1951 Geneva Convention and because of the poor guarantees the Turkish Government can offer regarding the respect of human rights and of the principle of non-refoulement;
  20. Demands significantly stronger political will towards the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), among other fora, to forge the necessary partnerships with Southern Neighbourhood states needed to overcome the short-term vision of the European Union and its Member States to make development assistance primarily conditional on migration cooperation to the detriment of EU values as well as the quality of broader development goals;
  21. Urges European leaders to change radically their migration and asylum narratives to make space for more sustainable and humane migration and asylum narratives and policies;
  22. Commits itself to explore opportunities for cooperation and exchange with young migrants and youth organisations working with refugees and migrants.
  23. Calls for the establishment of effective mechanisms to assess and match the skills of migrants with the labor market needs of Member States, facilitating seamless integration and contributing to the overall prosperity of the European Union;