EU nations agreed on Thursday to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers as they took a harder line toward tackling the bloc’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Interior ministers endorsed a dedicated program to send back those they described as economic migrants — who are largely from poor African nations — and not refugees from conflict zones.
After months of tensions over the more than 600,000 people who have flooded into Europe this year, Brussels is now taking a tougher stance by focusing on tightening border controls and reducing the incentive for people to travel to the continent.
Photo: Reuters
“Those who do not require international protection must return to their countries of origin,” Luxembourger Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, told reporters after the talks.
Europe has been seeking to clamp down on people smugglers in the Mediterranean, where more than 3,000 people have already died this year, or are missing feared drowned, while trying to make their way to Europe.
European warships launched Operation Sophia this week to seize traffickers’ boats in international waters and the UN Security Council was set to vote yesterday on a draft resolution to authorize military action against smugglers.
While the vote is not necessary for the EU to take action, the measure would authorize its navies to board ships for inspection, confiscate them and even dispose of vessels suspected of being used by smugglers.
Within the EU, the refugee crisis is causing political problems in nations where anti-immigration and euroskeptic parties are on the rise, as well as divisions between the bloc’s 28 members.
Tempers have flared over a scheme to relocate 160,000 people, which Brussels forced through despite stiff opposition from Eastern European nations, under which the first batch of refugees were due to be moved yesterday.
EU officials on Thursday also held talks with ministers and officials from Balkans nations, which have been on the front line of the influx on the bloc’s borders, as well as Syria’s neighbors Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
These three are already hosting millions of refugees from Iraq and Syria, and EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini called for more aid to help them cope with refugees and to help resettle some of them in Europe.
“We are in the same boat, facing the same problems. We need a common approach,” Mogherini told a press conference, calling for greater efforts to end Syria’s civil war.
Mogherini also said she has spoken privately to leaders of the Balkans to try “to calm down the situation as much as possible” after tensions involving Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia erupted over the flow of refugees.
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic on Thursday urged the EU to keep its borders open as he began a visit to Slovenia.
“The worst would be if the EU, Germany, Austria and Slovenia closed [their borders to refugees and migrants] now,” Nikolic said.
It is also raising fears that if Europe cannot protect its external borders then its cherished passport-free Schengen zone could crumble, as member states restore controls at the old internal borders to stop refugees and migrants.
A plan for a pan-EU border guard corps with a special emphasis on helping overstretched front-line states such as Greece and Italy was formally proposed by France at the talks, sources said.
The idea is to be discussed by EU leaders at a summit next week, but analysts suspect some front-line states will object on the grounds of sovereignty and the right to guard their own external borders.
Key to efforts to deport migrants and admit genuine refugees is a proposal by the European Commission, the executive of the 28-nation EU, to set up “hotspots,” or reception centers in Greece and Italy where officials separate the two categories.
However, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said the “hotspots” are far from ready, after he visited one such site in Greece.
“In terms of timing and organization, nothing has been thought through,” Faymann said.
Avramopoulos and Asselborn traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa yesterday to mark the opening of the first of the handful of hotspots planned for Greece and Italy.
They were also on hand when about 20 Eritreans were moved to Sweden from Italy under the new relocation scheme agreed last month.
The Luxembourg meetings came a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande both called for an overhaul of the EU’s asylum system.
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