May 15, 2015

Dispute about a quote for humanity

editor:	Ama Lorenz

The mills of EU grind slowly. As the European immigration policy is criticized by many international human rights organizations and even by EU member states for years, it took mass drownings in the Mediterranean for the EU politicians to finally react.

On Wednesday the European Comission discussed a long-term strategy to deal with migrants and refugees trying to reach the EU - the European Agenda on Migration.

According to politico.eu the key elements of the plan include:

• A quota system: Currently five of the 28 EU member states take in about three-quarters of the asylum seekers in Europe. The Commission wants binding quotas for taking in refugees across all EU member countries. The proposal consists a formula considering the strength of the economy and unemployment rates in each country, the size of the population as well as the number of refugees they have taken in so far.
• A resettlement program: An EU-wide resettlement program would take refugees from camps outside the Union. The Commission has set an overall figure of 20,000 asylum seekers over two years and the plan will be funded with €50 million in 2015 and 2016.
• A Blue Card: For highly skilled migrants, a Blue Card would be available similar to the US Green Card program. The Blue Card Directive already provides such a scheme, but in its first two years, only 16,000 were issued.
• Tripling the capacities and assets for the Frontex joint operations Triton and Poseidon in 2015 and 2016: The Commission adopted an amended budget for 2015 to secure more funds, for a total of €89 million. The new Triton plan will be presented by the end of May.
• Launching a joint military operation in the Mediterranean to halt traffickers’ networks and smuggling.
• Using emergency procedure: The Commission also plans to use Article 78.3 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU to establish the quota system as an “emergency” measure with accelerated legal ratification, bypassing the Parliament. This would also mean that only a qualified majority in the Council would be needed. In this way it could pass without unanimous approval of the whole Council.

Nations supporting the idea include Italy, Greece, Germany and Sweden. However there's been resistance from several Eastern European and Baltic states, as well as and especially from the UK. The just recently for five more years elected Conservative-led government has not only the well-known problems with the EU or with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Conservative party’s election success backed in part by opponents to immigration. British Home Secretary Theresa May is quoted in the The Times: "I disagree with the suggestion by the EU's high representative, Federica Mogherini, that 'no migrants' intercepted at sea should be 'sent back against their will'. We must — and will — resist calls for the mandatory relocation or resettlement of migrants across Europe. Such an approach would only strengthen the incentives for criminal gangs to keep plying their evil trade.”
This opposition to sharing the numbers of refugees is far away from the community values of the EU. European Parliament President Martin Schulz said to the German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk: "The egotism of individual parts of the European Union has for the past 20 years prevented an effective and humane solution to this problem."

One may wonder, how Ms May‘s alternative solution looks like. Keeping in mind that a big portion of UK’s wealth and of other economic leading countries is based on a destructive colonial system that sucked the African continent dry. That the development aid failed. That European trade barriers for African products are still in place; that they are even extended by new planed Treaties like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Seems to be right, “evil trade” is one of the reasons for people leaving their home countries under the risk of their lives.

Photo: EU Commission, Migration and Home Affairs