EU leaders have agreed to toughen up border controls to keep out people trying to enter, with more funds pledged for cameras, drones and watchtowers at the bloc’s external borders.
The decision was published in the early hours of Friday after the 27 leaders met to discuss tighter control of the EU’s external frontier, in response to the highest number of people filing asylum applications since 2016.
The European Commission has long said the EU budget cannot fund fences or walls, despite growing entreaties from member states, such as Austria and Hungary. But EU funds are available for other “border infrastructure” projects. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, promised on Friday there would be “pilot programmes to provide an integrated package of mobile and stationary infrastructure from cars to cameras, from watchtowers to electronic surveillance”.
This infrastructure, she said, could be funded by national or European funds or bilateral contributions from member states that want to support a neighbouring country. “The focus is on having a functioning border so that we know if somebody comes to the border, there is a procedure that should be the same all over the European external border,” Von der Leyen told reporters.
In a summit communique, EU leaders urged the commission “to immediately mobilise substantial EU funds and means” to support member states in reinforcing border protection, including aerial surveillance and other equipment.
Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said the EU needed to “pull the brake on illegal migration” and called for more funding, “no matter if you call it a fence or border infrastructure”. He said that Bulgaria, which shares a border with Turkey, needed help with border surveillance personnel and equipment, adding: “Every fence is only as good as there is effective surveillance.”
Austria, where growing numbers of asylum seekers and migrants have been arriving via southern Europe, supports the building of a €2bn fence on the Bulgarian-Turkish border.
Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, said financing such barriers would be “wrong”, arguing that Europe’s history was about taking down walls.
He suggested the money could be invested elsewhere: “We saw that walls are not giving solutions to problems, between the United States and Mexico … [Is] the conclusion that we want a fortress in Europe?”
Ever since 1.3 million people from wartorn and/or repressive countries in the Middle East and Africa arrived in the EU to claim asylum in 2015, European leaders have sparred over how to deal with irregular migration.
The issue has reemerged as growing numbers of people fleeing war and poverty seek asylum or a better life in the EU. The most recent data from November shows that 107,300 people claimed asylum in the EU and associated countries such as Norway in November 2022, the highest since 2016. Syrians and Afghans lodged the most applications that month, followed by citizens from Turkey, Colombia and Venezuela. Ukrainians are entitled to temporary protection in the EU, so make relatively few asylum claims.
Applications were at an all-time high for citizens from Turkey, Bangladesh, Morocco and Georgia, the data from the EU Agency for Asylum also showed. On average, only 39% of asylum claims are recognised, meaning EU countries seek to return many people to their country of origin.
As the Guardian reported last month, EU leaders agreed to use “as leverage” policies, including diplomacy, development aid, trade, visa liberalisation, as well as legal migration routes, over governments in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and elsewhere that are deemed to be not co-operating in taking back their citizens denied asylum.
Emmanuel Macron defended this approach when it came to visas as “normal political dialogue”. He said: “What is at stake in the European Union is how to better protect our borders and how to better integrate people when they arrive and want to stay here.”
The French president also said there needed to be better EU support to help African countries fight terrorism, manage climate change and promote education, building on pledges agreed at a 2015 summit.
Aid agencies, however, have criticised proposals to use the EU’s large development budget to promote higher return rates of people denied asylum. “Development aid is for ending poverty, not to stop migration,” said Stephanie Pope at Oxfam. “The EU’s one-sided approach undermines its credibility as a defender of human rights and its statement of being an equal partner to African countries.”
