Aller à la navigation Aller au contenu

Press Review June 2025

 Libya

The central Mediterranean route, once abandoned by people on the move after its closing down, coordinated by the Italian authoritiesand implemented by Tunis and Tripoli, is once again becoming one of the main routes for arriving in Europe: 24,583 migrants are thought to have used it to reach the continent in 2025. However, Libya is continuing to conduct interceptions of people at sea (’pullbacks’), operations for which it receives subsidies from the EU and its Member States [1]: 10,600 people are said to have been intercepted this year. Far from discouraging crossings, this policy only makes them more dangerous and deadly: two shipwrecks were reported to have caused at least 60 deaths off the coast of Libya at the beginning of June 2025, and a total of 743 people on the move have died in the Mediterranean this year.

While Europeans were so quick to hail the alleged success of externalising their border and migration control [2], this ’success’ (built on Europe’s compromise with North African authoritarian regimes and utter indifference to the rights violations caused [3]) was clearly only circumstantial. While Europe has temporarily met its numerical targets for reducing migratory flows, it has done so at the cost of the lives of at least 2,200 people in 2024 [4], and of the dignity of thousands of others, subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment inboth Tunisia and Libya [5].

 Tunisia

In Tunisia, the IOM is continuing the frenetic and industrial implementation of its ’voluntary returns’ programme, the number of which has reached more than 4,000 since January–an increase of almost 15% on the figures for the same period in 2024 [6]. At the same time, the Tunisian government announced that it had begun to cover the full travel costs of migrants who ’agree’ to return to their country of origin–a measure that was unveiled with hypocrisy, following yet another operation (the dismantling of ’camp 15’, where some 1,500people on the move were living, in the governorate of Sfax) aimed precisely at making this ’option’ the only way for migrants to avoid the violations of their rights in Tunisia, rather than a free and voluntary choice.

The intimidation and terror orchestrated by the Tunisian regime to force people to give up their plans to migrate, which have been denounced for many years by civil society [7], also take the form of numerous ’interceptions at sea’ [8] and instances of bodies appearing washed upon the Tunisian coast, in the silence of the authorities [9].

 Lebanon

In Lebanon, the National Human Rights Commission concluded in its 2024 reportthat ’refugees, particularly Syrians, faced increasinglydire circumstancesin 2024’, citing in particular an ’escalation of coercive measures and arbitrary practices against them’, ’a surge in anti-refugee rhetoric and forced deportation campaigns, many of which lack legal and humanitarian safeguards’. The Lebanese authorities reportedly expelled more than 1,400 Syrian refugees in 2024, ’in flagrant violation of the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in the UN Convention against Torture’ [10]. As Lebanon is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees (which enshrines this principle, not only when a risk of exposure to torture arises, but more generally in the face of any risk of persecution), the 722,000 Syrian refugees living in the country face a dangerous and deliberately precarious administrative situation: only 17% manage to obtain legal residence status, due to a restrictive regulatory framework and the suspension of refugee registrations by UNHCR since 2015 [11]; the remaining 83% are therefore exposed to greater risks of violations of their rights, with no legal or procedural guarantees.

However, this situation has not prevented the European Union from granting, in May 2024, one billion euros in funding to Lebanon for the 2024-2027period for migration issues, including 736 million euros ’in assistance for education, social protection and access to health care for Syrians and vulnerable people’ in the country, and 264 million euros earmarked for training and equipping the Lebanese security forces ’to manage migratory flows’ [12]–in line with the stated aim of ’preventing the arrival of Syrian refugees in Cyprus’. The EU is thus continuing to fund the restrictive and repressive migration policies of a country that is not aligned with the standards and values it is supposed to defend and protect, as it has been doing since 2011 (2.6 billion disbursed on these two programmes). In September 2024, for example, Human Rights Watch warned about the the Cypriot and Lebanese authorities cooperating to orchestrate the interception of boats leaving Lebanon for Cyprus and the deportation of their occupants to Lebanese ports, then from Lebanon to Syria–a procedure carried out with an excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions and inhuman and degrading treatment.

 Syria

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than two million Syrians who had been displaced (internally in Syria or in other countries) since the start of the civil war in 2011 have returned home since the fall of the dictator Bashar Al-Assad in December 2024. The High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi, discussed ways of increasing opportunities for Syrian refugees to return to Syria, with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who believes that ’the reasons for their displacement have ceased to exist’. The Lebanese government is planning for 300,000 Syrians currently residing in Lebanon to return to Syria by September, and is seeking to encourage their return by offering a financial incentive ($100) and exemption from potential fines for those whose residence permits have expired.

This desire to encourage Syrians to return to their country of origin undermines their right to protection, while the stability of the country and the safety of its population are not guaranteed. The hypocrisy of such a policy can be seen most clearly by consulting the diplomatic services of various European countries(Austria,Germany,the Netherlands,Cyprus,etc.), all of which advise their nationals against travelling to Syria because of the security risks: the ’incentives’ for Syrian refugees to return put in place by these same countries [13] are aclear demonstration of their lack of consideration for the Syrians’ real need for protection. Once again, the UNHCR is defending restrictive migration policies, giving precedence to the injunctions of its donors [14] over its mandate to protect refugees [15].

 Germany

On 2 June 2025, a Berlin administrative court overturned the German government’s decision to send back three Somalis who had entered Germany to seek international protection, shortly after Germany implemented a policy of almost systematically denying entry to anyone who turns up at its borders–including those seeking protection. The ruling recalls that EU law requires Germany to carry out a ’Dublin procedure’ (undertheeponymousRegulation) before transferring an asylum seeker to another EU country. This is only possible if the procedure determines that the person entered the EU via another Member State, which would then be responsible for examining their asylum application instead of Germany. The government had taken the view that the high number of asylum applications lodged in Germany in 2024 (almost 230,000) represented a threat to the country’s security and public order which, under Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, allowed it to derogate from EU law. The Court ruled that the circumstances invoked did not justify the decision taken in the referred case, recalling the strict and constant interpretation of the Court of Justice of the EU in this matter [16].

The Minister of the Interior reacted by stating that Germany would maintain its practice, believing that ’there is a legal basis, independently of this decision which applies to a particular case’ and that ’there is no reason to change[their]practice’. This judicial setback does therefore not seem to affect Germany’s determination to pursue violations of the rights of people on the move. Following the example of the Italian executive [17], the German government seems determined to discredit the judiciary, ignore its decisions and maintainat all costs its rights-violating policies, in defiance of its own legal system.

The German governmen thas announced the suspension of its funding for NGOs involved in rescue operations in the Mediterranean, after several years of regular funding (to the tune of around €2 million a year). Germany had already granted nearly €900,000 to associations this year [18], but the Federal Finance Minister’s next budget will not include such expenditures.

While 743 deaths have already been recorded in the Mediterranean Sea in 2025, the work of sea rescue associations is essential to compensate for the inaction of European states: yet for several years now, the latter have been determined to obstruct rescue operations by civilian ships [19], creating distress situations at sea that are intended to be ’deterrent’. This dangerous and ineffective “letting people die”strategy means that people attempting to cross the Mediterranean are left to drift, perish at sea, or be interceptedby the Tunisian or Libyan authorities, and subsequently exposed to numerous violations of their rights.

The Bundestag has approved the government’s bill to suspend the right to family reunification for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection in Germany. Subsidiary protection is granted to people who do not qualify for refugee status, but who still seek protection due to a well-founded fear of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment, if they were to return to their country of origin. This is particularly the case for people fleeing civil war, including Syrians, who are 380,000 to enjoy this protection.

Almost 12,000 family members of beneficiaries of subsidiary protection were authorised to join them in Germany every year: this suspension will jeopardise their right not to be separated, as well as their integration in the country, by depriving them of their right to a family life–which is enshrined in and protected by the German Constitution (article 6), as well as the European Convention on Human Rights (article 8), which the executive seems prepared to trample on to satisfy its objective of ’controlling and limiting immigration into Germany’.

 France

  • InfoMigrants, ’Manche: la France envisage de mener des interceptions en mer’, 9 June 2025

A few days after almost 1,200 migrants disembarked in the UK, it was reported that France intended to present a plan ’by the summer’ to carry out interceptions in French territorial waters in the Channel, in response to the phenomenon of ’taxi-boats’ (boats launched before boarding to prevent any land interception).

This change in doctrine, if implemented, would jeopardise the lives of thousands of people who attempt to cross the Channel to the UK every year, as interception at sea is a particularly dangerous manoeuvre in general, and all the more so for the type of craft targeted. This announcement preceded by a few days a particularly virulent intervention by the French police: armed with shields, helmets, truncheons and tear gas, the agents went to ’intercept’ in the water a group of migrants trying to board a rubber dinghy. These events are symptomatic of a resurgence of repression at this border, instigated by the United Kingdom [20] and willingly accepted by a French government eager to show itself ’tough’ on migrants.

France’s interior minister has instructed prefects to hold a ’national flow control operation’ on 18 and 19 June 2025. The stated aim: to step up police checks at French stations, trains and transport, particularly those serving the north of the country or neighbouring countries–targeting foreign nationals or those perceived to be foreign nationals, in order to arrest (and ultimately deport) those whose administrative situation is irregular. The main consequence of this publicity stunt (since eyewitness accounts suggest that the police presence in the places targeted was similar to usual), seems to have been the instigation of a climate of terror among migrants and the stigmatisation of people of colour.

This desire to organise roundups of people without residence permits, which is reminiscent of the methods used by the ICE (immigration agency) in the United States [21], was denounced by numerous civil society associations, including the Gisti, which lodged an urgent appeal with the Conseil d’État on 18 June 2025–which was ineffective, as the Conseil d’État’s decision was taken on the day the operation was completed. Although ’random administrative checks’ are authorised in France, this measure goes well beyond the scope of the law, in particular by increasing the risk of racial profiling (of people assumed to be foreigners, which the Council of State has recognised to be areal and unlawful practice of the French police [22]) and refoulement (since people seeking protection do not necessarily enter a country’s territory in a ’regular’ manner, which should not prevent them from applying for asylum).

 Greece

The Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum has expressed his wish to conclude an ’agreement’ with Libya to ’manage and reduce irregular migration flows’ along the lines of the arrangement Italy concluded with the Tripoli authorities in 2017. Under this arrangement, Rome provided technical and financial support to the Libyan authorities to facilitate the blockade of the country’s shores by its ’coastguard’ (surveillance and interception resources). This announcement comes at a time when the number of people on the move arriving in Greece from Libya is rising [23].

The Italian inspiration for this proposal is worrying: for several years, civil society organisations have been denouncing the disastrous consequences of the Italy-Libya Memorandum on respect for the rights of migrants (inhuman and degrading treatment, torture, arbitrary detention, human trafficking, extortion, forced labour, forced prostitution, abductions, etc.). Its replication by the Greek authorities can only intensify the human rights violations committed by Libya. In addition, the Greek Prime Minister has announced that he asked the Ministry of the Armed Forces to prepare for the deployment of military vessels in the Mediterranean, close to Libyan territorial waters, barely concealing his desire to turn people back–declaring that he wanted to ’show that smugglers will not be able to bring migrants freely into our territory’ [24].

 Hungary

The European Court of Human Rights has handed down a judgement (H.Q and others v. Hungary) condemning Hungary for carrying out three expulsions deemed to becollective in nature (prohibited by Article 4 of the Fourth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights) and depriving the victims of their right to an effective remedy. The applicants in this case had been returned from Hungary to Serbia, in the absence of any official decision, and without their wish to apply for asylum being heard.

In fact, as the Court points out, since 2020 Hungary has suspended the possibility of applying for asylum within the country: any application must be preceded by the lodging of a declaration of intent with a Hungarian embassy abroad, making it possible to obtain travel documents to Hungary. This flagrant violation of international and EU law has already led to convictions: the Court of Justice of the European Union(CJEU) found Hungary guilty of failing to fulfil its obligations under the Procedures Directive (case C-823/21) because of this ’embassy procedure’. Although Hungary’s asylum system is notorious for infringing fundamental rights and contravening European standards, the country ignores the CJEU rulings and has therefore been ordered to pay a fine of €200 million to the European Commission (together with a penalty of €1 million for eachadditional day ofdelay in payment) for failing to comply with European law following a ruling in 2020. As Hungary refused to pay the fine, the amount of which continued to rise, the European Commission announced in September 2024 that it would deduct it from the European funds initially earmarked for Hungary [25]. This damning judicial history for Hungary speaks volumes about the impunity with which European countries violate international and European law, fail to pay the consequences and undermine the rule of law on the continent.

 Italy

In the case of S.S. and others v. Italy, where a practice of ’refoulements by proxy’ during a rescue operation in central Mediterranean international waters was denounced by the plaintiffs, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) unanimously declared the plaintiffs’ application inadmissible in a decision of 12 June 2025, on the grounds that the facts did not fall within Italian jurisdiction. The applicants, 17 Nigerian and Ghanaian nationals, were part of a group of around 150 people who, in November 2017, left Libya on a rubber dinghy with the aim of reaching Europe. While the boat was in Libya’s (unilaterally proclaimed) maritime search and rescue zone, Rome’s Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) received a distress call from the occupants and urged any vessel in the vicinity to come to their assistance. Although the vessel Sea Watch 3 was close, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Tripoli told the MRCC in Rome that it was assuming the responsibility of the rescue via the Libyan vessel Ras Jadir. The dangerous manoeuvres of the ship, which was the first on the scene, caused a heavy swell and the death of several people thrown overboard. Nine of the applicants were rescued by the Sea Watch 3, and the other eight by the Ras Jadir, six of whom escaped after allegedly being subjected to violence. The last two applicants were disembarked in Libya, detained and subjected to ill-treatment and violence. Believing that their rights under Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, and Article 4 of its fourth protocol, had been violated, the 17 applied to the ECtHR.

This case raised the question of Italian responsibility for the alleged acts. The protection of the Convention can only be invoked if the alleged victims of rights violations are under the jurisdiction (de jure or de facto) of one of the States parties. The applicants considered that this condition had been met, because the MRCC in Rome had initiated the coordination of the rescue of their dinghy, before the Ras Jadir arrived on the scene and assumed this responsibility, which would correspond to the ’initiation of proceedings’ capable of establishing a jurisdictional link between them and the Italian State within the meaning of the Court’s case law [26]. The applicant added that Italy’s financial and logistical support for the Libyan ’coastguard’ amounted to the exercise of de facto control by Italy over search and rescue operations off the Libyan coast, leading to ’refoulements by proxy’. The Court, while recognising the inhuman and degrading treatment to which the applicants were exposed, rejected their arguments, holding that the boats and persons involved were not under Italy’s effective control, and that the launch of a rescue procedure or the support given to the Libyan ’coastguards’ could not be sufficient to establish an extraterritorial jurisdictional link between the applicants and the Italian State. Although the ECtHR has jurisdiction only to review compliance with the ECHR, and no other international treaties, this judgment strengthens the European States’ strategy of circumventing international law by externalising their restrictive and repressive migration policies. Even though the pull-back in question could not have taken place without the intervention of the Rome MRCC and then of Libyan ’coastguards’ trained, financed and equipped by Italy, the latter is held to be exempt from responsibility, raising fears that its strategy may be replicated by other European states wishing to circumvent their international obligations [27].

Altre Economia reveals that on 9 May 2025, the Italian authorities deported five Egyptian nationals directly from their extra-territorial detention centre in Gjäder (Albania): the deportees were taken to Tirana airport to board a flight to Cairo, specially chartered by the Italian Ministry of Interior.

Rome’s initial silence on this operation, whose merits and success the government would normally have praised, seems to indicate that the Italian authorities are well aware of the violations of rights involved. In fact, the deportees were submitted to an Italian administrative procedure outside Italian territory and jurisdiction, and consequently without any judicial or administrative control or procedural guarantees, which would have been mandatory in Italy. The memorandum of understanding between Italy and Albania, on the basis of which the Gjäder centre was set up, only places the camp itself under Italian jurisdiction: the detainees’ transfer to Albanian territory and as far as Tirana (rather than to an Italian airport [28]) therefore deprived them of their rights, proving once again that externalisation–in this case of expulsion procedures–is incompatible with respect for rights.

 Bosnia-Herzegovina

The European Union has announced the conclusion of a status agreement with the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the stated aim of which is to enable Frontex to be deployed for joint border surveillance operations in the country, which shares a border of almost 1,000 km with Croatia, and thus ’prevent irregular border crossings and enhance security in the region’. Although the agreement still requires the approval of the European and Bosnian Parliaments, its Article 22(3) allows for a provisional implementation: the first Frontex agents could therefore be deployed in the coming weeks.

This text is the latest of a series of agreements between the EU and the countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro in 2023, Serbia in 2025) to deploy Frontex there, thereby reinforcing the externalisation of EU border control in the Balkans region. One of the alarming aspects of this agreement, concluded on the same model as with neighbouring countries [29], is its Article 12, which organises the impunity of the European agency and its officers. It establishes absolute immunity for Frontex officers in respect of all acts carried out as part of a joint operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, whether before the criminal, civil or administrative courts in that country. The characterisation of an act as falling within the ’exercise of the official functions of the agent’ is left entirely to the discretion of the Executive Director of Frontex. In addition, any damage caused to a third party in the course of these official duties will be the responsibility of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Frontex property, funds and assets in the country are protected from search (art.11). Agents seconded by Member States to Frontex who participate in joint operations are not exempt from trial before the courts of their home Member State. But, on the other hand, acts carried out by members of the Frontex standing corps in the performance of their duties are not linked to any jurisdiction or liability regime–at least not by the status agreement. It is through such instruments that the impunity of Frontex is built up and perpetuated, with the agency pre-emptively obstructing any legal proceedings against it for potential wrongdoing committed during joint operations–in complete violation of its mandate regulation, which specifies that the European agency incurs extra-contractual liability for any damage caused by its services or staff in the performance of their duties [30], and that its agents are criminally liable before the courts of the host state of a joint operation [31].

 United Kingdom

Faced with insistent calls from the opposition for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the UK government is launching internal consultations on the impact of ECtHR rulings on the authorities’ ability to carry out deportations of foreign nationals. This is an old debate that is resurfacing in the UK, reinvigorated by the desire to reform the ECHR expressed by various European countries in a letterin May 2025 [32]. Wishing to avoid outright withdrawal, or a ’Brexit-style’ referendum, which the Tories might hold if they come to power, the Labour government seems ready to push for such a reform, despite the associated risks–particularly with regard to Articles 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment) and 8 (right to privacy and family life), which are considered to hamper expulsion or extradition procedures from the UK.

It shall be reminded that the ECHR guarantees the same rights to everyone under the jurisdiction of one of the States Parties, regardless of their nationality: therefore, the desire to weaken its scope (in order to make it ’easier’ to deport foreign nationals) stems from a fundamentally xenophobic intention–that of reducing the protection of the rights of foreign nationals, and only them. Those who advocate for this reform conviniently do not mention the fact that the ECHR is based on the principle of the equality of all persons before the law: therefore, any reform aimed at lowering the level of protection provided by this text cannot apply only to foreigners, but to all persons subject to the jurisdiction of a State Party. Any reform initiated in this direction is therefore not only xenophobic, but also a serious threat to human rights and the protection of all individuals in Europe.

 Turkey

Four Turkish border guards have been sentenced to life imprisonment, and four others to seven and a half years’ imprisonment, for torturing nine Syrian refugees who had sought protection in the country in March 2023, and causing the death of two of them. The convicts locked the group of Syrians in acage and beat them with truncheons, cables and iron bars, before urinating on them and forcing them to drink fuel. After two and a half hours of torture, two members of the group, aged 18 and 19, died. Of the 14 others charged in the case, 11 were acquitted and three were imprisoned for their role in concealing the crime.

These exceptionally violent crimes illustrate the risks run by Syrians seeking protection in Turkey–without, moreover, being able to be fully recognised as refugees there, as Turkey has never lifted the geographical restriction on the scope of the Geneva Convention preventing non-European refugees from being protected by the text. Despite this, the EU is financing the’reception’ of Syrian refugees in Turkey (almost €10 billion disbursed since 2011according to the Council of the EU), as well as ’migration and border management’ (€398 million in 2024). Under the EU-Turkey Declaration (2016), in exchange for these investments, every migrant arriving on the Greek islands after 20 March 2016, including asylum seekers, were to be returned to Turkey. Although this mechanism was suspended by Turkey in 2020, 2,140 people have fallen victim to it , according to the European External Action Service.

 Future Danish Presidency of the EU Council

After six months under the Polish Presidency, Denmark will take over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July 2025. The Danish Minister for European Affairs has set out her country’s priorities for the occasion. In line with her government’s increasingly restrictive policies and positions, she said that she hoped to build a consensus on externalising asylum procedures outside Europe, and restricting the scope of European Court of Human Rights decisions–a court that is, however, not linked to the European Union, but to the Council of Europe.

The previous presidencies (Hungary and Poland) had already fought for the development of pseudo ’innovative solutions’ for externalising European migration policy in order to circumvent EU law [33]. The next step taken by the Danes is likely to exacerbate the direction taken by the European institutions and bolster the European Commission’s most rights-undermining legislative plans [34].