The EU risks opening the door to increased discrimination and racial profiling in what is being described as a “potentially irreversible attack” on the international system offering asylum and refugee protection, human rights organisations have said.
Seventeen NGOs have together sounded the alarm before what is expected to be one of the final meetings on the text of a package of controversial new migration laws already agreed by most EU leaders.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, the organisations say they are concerned that the laws are about to be fudged in an unacceptable compromise to ensure support from member states and MEPs.
The director of Amnesty International’s EU office, Eve Geddie, said: “For years the EU has been trying to agree on a new system to respond to people moving or fleeing to Europe. The agreement now on the table would in many ways worsen existing legislation, and risks increasing suffering at European borders.”
EU leaders have spent seven years trying to reform migration laws and managed to get majority support for their plans, despite objections by Hungary and Poland this year.
The laws include relocating refugees and migrants from the country of arrival, such as Italy or Greece, to the rest of the EU, with penalties of €20,000 a head for those countries who refuse to receive their share.
They also involve tightened-up rules on the return of people who fail to qualify for asylum, a single set of rules governing the processing of incomers at the border, and a central rather than national strategy in the event of a sudden increase in the number of people arriving, such as that seen in 2015 when 1.3 million people, many fleeing the war in Syria, came to the continent.
To get the laws on the statute books European parliamentary approval is also required. Sources say there are still major differences with MEPs before a crunch meeting, known as a trilogue, to work out the final wording of the laws on Thursday.
One of parliament’s objections relates to a new “screening” regulation under which police would be allowed to detain someone for up to five days if they do not have documents demonstrating residency or citizenship.
“They [MEPs] are worried that this could lead to discrimination. If someone showed up in a town or village that did not look ‘local’ they could be questioned,” said one diplomat.
Humanitarian organisations have added their voice, saying the “screening” could discriminate against millions of black or minority ethnic EU citizens travelling within the bloc. It could lead to racial profiling by police and immigration enforcement, they argue, “as anyone who looks ‘foreign’ could be stopped and checked for travel/residence documents”.
The organisations, which include Amnesty International, Border Violence Monitoring Network, EuroMed Rights, Jesuit Refugee Service Europe, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (Picum) and Save the Children have also raised objections to other aspects of the proposed reforms, including the definition of what is a “safe country” to which people can be returned.
The organisations are also worried about the “externalisation” of migration control after Italy announced last month that it had sealed a deal to place reception centres in Albania.
Michele LeVoy, director at Picum, said: “This pact reflects Europe’s obsession with deportations, based on the assumption that if you don’t qualify for international protection, then you have no right to stay in the EU. What this approach blatantly overlooks is that people move for many different reasons and may have a right to access residence permits other than those linked to asylum.”
The migration legislation is among dozens of legislative bills going through the EU system, amid pressure on the EU to get new laws agreed by the end of the year, with final touching up of wording complete by the second week in February.
The European parliamentary elections in June have reduced the timetable for law-making. Diplomats say it will take until the last European parliament session in April to get bills through the legal verification and translation process.
