Saturday

10th Jun 2023

Legal complaint filed with EU Commission over migration

  • Greece has been accused of numerous 'push-backs' of migrants and refugees (Photo: Republic of Turkey)

Dutch lawyers have filed a legal complaint, urging the European Commission to hold Greece accountable for violating EU asylum laws.

The law firm filed the 68-page complaint on the behalf of international aid agency Oxfam and the NGO WeMove Europe, demanding the European Commission do its job as the guardian of the treaties.

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"This is not the first time the commission is being called to action, and so far, for political reasons, they have simply not done anything, or enough," said Maurits ter Haar, a senior associate at the Amsterdam-based De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek N.V. law firm.

Speaking to EUobserver on Monday (21 September), Ter Haar said the most pressing issue were the so-called 'push-backs' in Greece - an illegal practice that forces people seeking international protection from entering the desired territory or state.

Greek authorities earlier this year suspended asylum applications for a month, following Turkey's threat to use migrants and refugees as political leverage against Athens and the EU.

But media reports, videos and other documented evidence show people being forced back into Turkey amid the shooting of several people, including the killing of a young Syrian national.

Greek ministers have refuted the shootings, claiming it is concocted disinformation by Ankara, despite forensic analysis suggesting otherwise.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have both demanded investigations into the push-backs.

The European Commission says its support for Greece remains unequivocal - but has floated an idea to possibly better monitor push-backs.

The Brussels-executive has also remained largely silent on the month-long Greek asylum suspension and refuses to make public its own legal analysis on the Greek move.

"The EU prides itself on the rule of law and fundamental rights but at the same time it looks away when this is happening," pointed out Ter Haar.

The commission will now have 12 months to respond to the legal complaint, but it is not compelled to do anything about it.

New pact today

However, with the European Commission set to announce its new pact on migration and asylum on Wednesday, the latest legal manoeuvre also comes at a tricky time.

The latest pact has made a number of promises to overhaul a broken EU asylum system.

Previous efforts in 2016 led to a deadlock among member states, who failed to reach agreement on a number of the proposals - of which the most contentious remained the Dublin regulation, which governs which country is responsible for processing an asylum application.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament had endorsed those proposals only to to drop everything given the impasse among member states.

EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said of the new pact that there is no plan to open reception centres in countries that are not in the European Union.

"It is not the direction I intend to take. We will not export the right to asylum," she said.

But Dutch Green MEP Tineke Strik said she is convinced there will be some sort of border procedure in the pact.

"Everyone says that if we want to have a new solidarity system, we need to have a filter process, we need to have an assessment at the external border in order to know who we are going to relocate," she told reporters on Tuesday.

Strik said some EU states, such as the Netherlands, want a fully-fledged asylum system at the external borders - while Italy and Malta only want it to carry out registrations and identifications.

"We should limit the procedure there [the EU's external border] actually, like some southern member states say, to registration, identification and then do a match [with] which member states is the most eligible," she said.

The Greens are also pushing to have member states trade off the number of people resettled from outside the EU with the number of people they relocate.

Strik described it as an "award" for those that resettle more than they relocate.

Their plan seeks to rid the EU with the current principle that the member state of first entry should also largely be responsible for the asylum application process.

"Basically you would arrive at the border and you would be registered by the EU and Frontex and go through basic security checks and then you would be accommodated somewhere in an open reception facility," said German Volt MEP Damian Boeselager, who is also part of the Greens/European Free Alliance group.

Border pre-screening centres part of new EU migration pact

Michael Spindelegger, the former minister of foreign affairs of Austria and current director of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), reveals some of the proposals in the European Commission's upcoming pact on migration and asylum.

New EU migration pact 'to keep people in their country'

The European Commission's long-awaited pact on migration and asylum is now set to be unveiled on 23 September. Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas has likened it to a "house with three floors".

Analysis

Between the lines, Europe's new Moria unfolds

A new five-day screening of migrants at Europe's external borders is meant to expedite people into either 'asylum' or 'return' tracks. The time-limit is wishful thinking and one that could leave people stranded in make-shift camps or even ghettos.

Negotiations on asylum reform to start next week, says MEP

The European Parliament is seeking to launch negotiations on key asylum reforms with member states as early as next week. The demand follows Thursday's breakthrough political agreement in Luxembourg among EU interior ministers.

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