The European Commission is open to breaking another taboo that will consecrate its turn to the right on immigration matters, that of managing asylum applications outside the borders of the EU. And it does so less than two months after the Union gave the definitive green light to the migration pact that toughens reception conditions compared to the previous situation. In a letter sent this Tuesday to the leaders of the 27 member states of the community club, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, assures that she is open to exploring “innovative strategies to prevent irregular immigration” and to study formulas so that requests are managed outside the EU, a measure that, although it does not explicitly mention any examples, is very similar to Italy’s model in Albania, a candidate country for the community bloc where it intends to send migrants rescued at sea to process their requests. there, in centers managed by Italian staff.
Von der Leyen’s gesture to study a formula similar to the Albanian one is a clear gesture to those who call for a tougher approach to immigration management, such as the far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom she is trying to win over in order to gain the support of her political group on key measures during the next legislature. It is also a response to the letter from 15 Member States, led by Denmark, who in May called on Von der Leyen to find “innovative solutions” to manage immigration and who already used the Italian model in Albania as an example.
“The agreement on the pact [migratorio] “It is not the end of the reflection on the tools at our disposal,” says Von der Leyen’s letter to the leaders on the eve of the last European Council before the summer break. “Many Member States are exploring innovative strategies to prevent irregular migration and deal with asylum applications away from the EU’s external border,” she continues. “There are ongoing reflections on ideas that will undoubtedly deserve our attention when our next institutional cycle is underway,” highlights the German conservative, who aspires to repeat as head of the European Commission for another five years.
Von der Leyen assures that we can seek to “support the establishment of national asylum systems that function in partner countries” and at the same time strengthen EU cooperation on returns to countries of origin, accompanied by reintegration measures to the returnees.
Devised by the Italian Prime Minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni, its supporters defend that the Albania modelIt is not like the one that the United Kingdom has approved in Rwanda – which contemplates the deportation of migrants in an irregular situation to that African country – but is based on an agreement with a “safe” country outside the EU, where it will continue the European system, with personnel from a community country (Italy) and measures adjusted to European legislation.
The president of the European Commission now says that the migration pact reached in 2023 after years of negotiations is “a great advance”, but also that it is not enough. “It alone will not guarantee our success,” she notes. And she talks about completing it with formulas to cover the external dimension, that is, before asylum seekers arrive in the EU, to prevent these arrivals and, also, to process their requests in third countries. Von der Leyen talks about extending the model of pacts with countries outside the EU to which funds are sent for programs in exchange for stopping departures, a model that has already been signed in Lebanon, Tunisia or Mauritania and that is controversial, since it has been agreed with regimes with disastrous records of respect for human rights.
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“Only with well-functioning partnerships will we achieve cooperation to prevent departures and fight smuggling, as well as the smooth return and readmission of those who do not have the right to stay,” Von der Leyen says in her letter. “It is clear that the EU will only succeed in stopping irregular migration into EU territory if we are able to implement comprehensive and intelligent policies with our neighbors and beyond, in particular with the partners chosen for us by geography, as migrants transit through the States closest to the EU to reach our borders,” he continues.
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