By Diogo T. dos Santos
About a week ago, ECEPAA attended a conference along with other representatives of other organizations and professionals engaged in the non-profit organizations sector. The discussions consisted of topics from written “Policy Papers*” stemming from internal security matters, asylum and migration policies, to notions on the single market in the European Union.
Though such researchers did not attend the discussion sessions, Andrew Geddes and Martin Ruhs’ paper “Reforming Asylum and Migration Policies in Europe: Attitudes, Realism and Values” was referred to and talked about by other panelists, and it drew particular attention to ECEPAA.
How should EU Member States face the Asylum and Migration Policies issue?
EU Member States find themselves divided by attempting to figure out how to reform and reconstruct European asylum, refugee and migration policies. Although the number of new asylum applications has drastically reduced in the last year—in 2018, about 580,800 first-time asylum seekers were registered, a number considered low comparing with the years of 2015 and 2016 when number struck more than 1,200,000 applications a year—, talks about migration issues are still heated and without a definite solution.
” More Europe and greater solidarity” or “national or trans-national policy responses”?
Part of the Member States holds the position that the solution for such a challenge would be focusing on “more Europe” and “greater solidarity,” which means that a centralized EU asylum system and the sense of solidarity between countries could bring a brighter horizon. Others, however, face EU policy reform as unreachable and are fed up with waiting, hence making them take actions via national or trans-national policy responses.
So… How to approach the problem?
Among diverse policy proposals pouring around at the European Commission, Geddes and Ruhs argue that, in order to facilitate a reform, discussion and agreement should be engaged. Approaching the problem under the light of ideas exchanged in a debate and finally reaching an agreement are more effective because there has to be:
- a better understanding of public attitudes;
- a greater realism;
- a better definition of fundamental values conducting policy reform.
ECEPAA is highlighting the very first fundamental issue, which is understanding attitudes to migration in Europe and its motivations is essential for advancing with policy making. There is need to clarify, for once, that there is no increasing of negative feelings towards EU immigrants in spite of some far-right (as they are usually regarded) political leaders behave as being against immigration. Civil society is certainly not, but some powerful sections of the European population hold power enough to support highly influencing anti-immigration rhetoric. A large portion of Europeans have a more conservative orientation that directs them at favoring tradition, security, and conformity, but that does not mean they are not in accordance or not sympathizing with the distressing situation refugees go through. It only so happens that these citizens correlated chaos and disorder with the migration crisis.
Their standpoint, Geddes and Ruhs’ one, is particularly interesting and considerable given almost all recent new policy proposals had no agreement between EU member states in the course of the last four years. ECEPAA upholds their view on how the asylum and migration policy reform should be approached and undertaken.
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*If you want to take a look at the other panelists’ papers, all works are available at: http://europeangovernanceandpolitics.eui.eu/what-agenda-for-the-next-european-parliament/
Sources:
http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/61596
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/9665546/3-14032019-AP-EN.pdf/eca81dc5-89c7-4a9d-97ad-444b6bd32790