Ahead of the meeting of Heads of State or Government of EU member states this 17-18 October, Amnesty International urges European leaders to focus their efforts on humane and sustainable policies towards refugees and migrants, and to firmly reject proposals to establish ‘return hubs’ outside the EU.
‘Return hubs’ are incompatible with EU and international law, undermine the recently adopted EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and are contrary to the Commission’s own assessment in 2018 that these schemes ‘present significant legal and practical challenges’, ‘risk infringing the principle of non-refoulement’ and were questionably ‘in line with EU values’.
“The European Commission’s shameful U-turn on return hubs and other so-called ‘innovative ways’ to counter migration is highly alarming. For years, the Commission has failed to respond to member states that blatantly disregard EU and international law on asylum, now it seems intent on advancing its own proposals that are incompatible with human rights and international law,” said Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office.
“Governments know that attempts to send people to countries to which they have no connection without procedural guarantees are unlawful, unworkable and expensive. Wherever such schemes have been put in place, they have resulted in catastrophic human rights violations, while having a ruinous impact on asylum systems.
“EU leaders should abandon discussions on ‘externalizing’ or ‘offshoring’ refugee protection responsibilities beyond EU borders. Instead of these cruel experiments, they should focus their efforts on reaffirming the right to asylum in Europe and investing in well-functioning asylum and reception systems capable of supporting people arriving in Europe and the communities that welcome them.”
Background
Ahead of the European summit, President Ursula von der Leyen wrote to member states promising ‘innovative ways’ to address irregular arrivals, citing the Italy-Albania Protocol, implemented this week, as an example to follow. Under this scheme, Italy has begun transferring certain groups of people seeking asylum to detention centres in Albania, where their asylum claims would be processed.
Amnesty International has repeatedly warned that such measures result in rights violations including automatic and arbitrary detention, endangering the lives and physical integrity of people rescued at sea, posing heightened risks to children and individuals in vulnerable situations, undermining access to asylum with all necessary procedural guarantees, and the risk of refoulement.