The devastating shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea in April 2015 and the European Union’s "unwillingness to take action" in response have highlighted the failure of European asylum and reception policies. Faced with the crisis of humanity and solidarity, the EU should have opened its borders and fulfilled its responsibilities for sea rescue operations. Instead, however, the EU has opted to further strengthen its external borders by adopting the hotspot approach with a frame-work that gives (...)
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New kinds of confinement at the borders of the European Union
Proceedings of the Migreurop Conference - Madrid 2019
Since the implementation of the “hotspot approach” by the European Union (EU) in 2015, Migreurop has been decoding its consequences on migrants’ rights in publications and throughout various international meetings (Calais 2015, Rabat 2016). Preventing exiles’ arrivals and criminalizing migration are the aim of this mechanism – which is not new – and it comes with an increase of violence and violations of migrants’ rights within a security policy framework. After five years, what is the situation (...)
EU-Turkey: sharing cynicism
More than ever, on 18 March 2020, at a time when a pandemic is spreading, attacking the most destitute and least protected populations, including migrants in the hotspots, at borders, or locked up in European detention centres, we forcefully express our total rejection of this cynical policy, which is nothing less than a war on migrants.
Four years ago, on 18 March 2016, as the "EU/Turkey" Statement was made public, the European Union (EU) and Turkey embarked on a "dirty deal". In exchange (...)Xenophobia and racism are killing at the Greek-Turkish border! So is the European Union!
Over the past few days, people have been killed on the Greek-Turkish border! This situation is the direct consequence of political choices made by European leaders, willing to seal off the European Union’s borders by all means, especially by outsourcing the examination of asylum claims and the encampment of the “undesirable” to non-European states. Every day, unbearable footage shows exiles being turned away or deliberately put in danger.
The Greek police force and army, alongside some of (...)A coalition to “shield” migrants and refugees against violence at the borders
We will hold Greece and the EU accountable for the violations of the rights of migrants and refugees fleeing Turkey
Over the last days, violations of the rights of migrants and refugees seeking to access EU territory via Greece have escalated to a new extreme. The conditions for such an escalation have long been in the making. In 2015, the EU introduced the “hotspot” approach, imposing on Italy and Greece the sorting of migrants and refugees arriving on their shores. In March 2016, the EU (...)