We are heading for a new migration crisis

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Danish S Minister: The EU must start processing asylum cases outside Europe

This is a debate article. It is the writer who stands for the opinions expressed in the text, not Aftonbladet.

Published 2024-05-05 06.00

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full screen Eight years after the refugee crisis, we seem to be heading for a new one. Part of the solution should be for asylum seekers who reach Europe to be sent to a partner country outside Europe where their asylum applications are processed, writes Denmark’s Migration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek together with Peter Nedergaard, professor of political science. Photo: TT

DEBATE. Finally, white smoke recently came out of the negotiating rooms in Brussels. EU-countries have agreed on a new asylum and migration pact. Now we just need formal approval, then we have a new legal framework for the EU’s asylum and migration system.

The pact ensures new security measures through the screening of third-country nationals at the external borders and better registration possibilities. In addition, new measures are introduced to better manage irregular migration infocloseir irregular migration Irregular migration means that people from countries outside the EU move across EU borders without meeting the legal requirements for entry, stay or residence in one or more EU countries. Source: europarl.europa.eu. At the same time, a way has been found to support EU countries under pressure without resorting to forced redistribution of asylum seekers.

But as we look at the migration year of 2023, we must also realize that the Pact is far from solving all problems.

Last year, around 380,000 irregular migrants arrived at the EU’s external border, more than 1.1 million asylum applications were submitted to the EU and over 3,700 people died in the Mediterranean en route to Europe in dilapidated boats.

The EU countries’ migrant and asylum systems are still in deep crisis.

None of the figures above have been higher since the European migration crisis of 2016. Just eight years after the last refugee and migrant crisis, we seem to be heading for a new one.

Let us therefore be completely honest with each other in Europe. Does the Asylum and Migrant Pact ensure that by 2024 we can stop the deadly migration flow towards Europe? No. Does the pact ensure that humanism wins over the rights of the stronger in European asylum and migrant policy? No.

The pact contains sensible measures – but it is far from enough. We must move on.

pullquote The current asylum system in Europe is in many ways an expression of pure Social Darwinism

This year, a new EU Parliament will be elected and a new EU Commission will be appointed. We hope that both the European Parliament and the Commission will go to work with the understanding that the current asylum system is inhumane. It must fundamentally change. We owe it to the European citizens.

But we also owe it to the real refugees who didn’t have the money to pay the people smugglers. They are still left with a genuine need for asylum. We in Europe – the heart of humanism – cannot let it be like that.

Unfortunately, the system today favors the strongest and most risk-averse, who acquired the resources to reach European soil and seek asylum. Many are exploited or perish in the attempts to reach Europe.

Cynical smugglers make fortunes putting migrants on often dilapidated boats off the coast of North Africa.

The current asylum system in Europe is in many ways an expression of pure Social Darwinism, where only the fittest survive. Not those most in need of asylum.

About half of those who reach Europe and seek asylum are deemed not to need protection at all. Europe has big problems sending them home – and it costs hundreds of millions of euros to house migrants who don’t need our protection at all.

Back in the surrounding areas, the most vulnerable – often women and children – are left without the help they need. The large sums spent on dealing with migrants in Europe could be much better spent there.

Instead of throwing millions of euros at people in Europe with no need for asylum, we could have helped more people with a genuine need for asylum.

This is the harsh reality. Our current asylum system is not humane. Once we realize that, we can look forward and together create a fair way to help refugees to Europe.

Part of the solution should be for asylum seekers who reach Europe to be sent to a partner country outside Europe where their asylum applications are processed. If they meet the conditions for asylum, they receive protection in the partner country.

Such a model will destroy the current incentive structures where migrants who are not in need of protection embark on the dangerous journey in the hope of being able to stay on European soil despite being refused asylum.

Why would you want to pay human smugglers a high price for the journey to Europe with your life at stake, if you are not allowed to stay in Europe anyway?

We are of course open to other suggestions for solutions. What is crucial is that the unreasonable and collapsed asylum system we have today is replaced by a system where refugees come to Europe in a controlled manner and without the involvement of smugglers.

Together with the UN, we should instead select the most vulnerable from the world’s refugee camps, who are then taken to Europe. It really shouldn’t be a controversial point of view in the European migration debate.

We hope for a good dialogue around several proposed solutions when the Danish government holds an international migration conference in Copenhagen on May 6.

We have invited a number of countries from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and East and West Africa. At the same time, the European Commission, UN organizations and the African Union are invited.

With the conference, we will, among other things, discuss migration partnerships and new ideas about how we can deal with the challenges that the EU experiences with irregular migration.

pullquoteWhen Kristersson visited Denmark last year, he said that in the future we will see asylum procedures outside of Europe

The good news is that more and more European politicians are facing the truth and supporting fundamental changes to the current asylum system.

In early 2024, the Prime Minister of the German state of Bavaria, Markus Söder, spoke about the challenges of receiving and integrating thousands of newly arrived refugees. In total, Germany received over 350,000 asylum applications last year. We can therefore understand that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has initiated an analysis of the possibilities of handling asylum cases in third countries.

Italy is already cooperating with the Albanian government and will send irregular migrants rescued by Italian coast guards to Albania, where their asylum applications must be processed.

When Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Denmark last year he said that in the future we will see asylum procedures outside Europe’s borders.

Today, Sweden also looks at the situation soberly and humanistically.

Finland has experienced how smugglers have helped migrants from, among others, Syria, Somalia, Yemen and Iraq to Moscow and from there on to the Finnish border to seek asylum.

The situation is absurd and shows how dysfunctional Europe’s asylum system is. Fortunately, Finland is fighting back. The Finns are trying to protect their external border and curb irregular migration.

Speaking of the fight against irregular migration, one of us (Kaare Dybvad Bek) was in Tunisia at the end of 2023 together with the Austrian Minister of the Interior, Gerhard Karner, to experience how the Tunisian border guards – with financial support from Denmark and Austria – fight irregular migration against Europe.

Austria is also a proponent of processing asylum cases outside of Europe. These are just some of the examples of new winds blowing in the European migration debate.

There are many people around Europe who want fundamental changes. Who fight for more humanism in the asylum debate and less cynicism.

We hope that the migration conference in Copenhagen can help us become even more so that we can stop the great tragedies for which the current asylum system bears the blame. It won’t be easy, and there’s a long way to go.

But we believe we are slowly moving in the right direction. With the pact, some important steps have been taken. Now we have to move on soon and fast, because we are far from the finish line.

Kaare Dybvad Bek, Minister of Migration (Social Democracy)
Peter Nedergaard, professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen

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