The EU continues to shift its dirty work of mistreating migrants

While media and political attention is often focused on migrants’ deaths trying to cross the strips of sea at Europe’s borders, there is much less awareness about what happens in transit countries such as Niger, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and others. A newly-published report by IOM, UNHCR and the Mixed Migration Centre describes an extremely grim situation for people on the move trying to reach Europe through the African continent. The report denounces the ‘unimaginable horrors’ experiences by refugees, including ‘death, SGBV, torture and physical violence, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking in persons, robbery, arbitrary detention, collective expulsions and refoulement’.

The EU frequently attributes the human rights abuses suffered by refugees and migrants in transit countries to the actions of human smugglers and traffickers. This narrative conveniently shifts the focus away from the EU’s role and responsibility: in reality, the EU member states’ border externalisation policies, which outsource border control to non-EU countries, are the main drivers of migrants’ abuse and exploitation.

The New Pact on Migration and Asylum

The New Pact on Migration and Asylum, approved by the EU Parliament earlier this year, embeds border externalisation as a core component of Europe’s migration policy. The mechanism is very simple: by offering financial aid and support, the EU expects transit countries to stop migrants before they make it Europe, preventing them from reaching European soil before they are able to lodge an asylum application. Deals with third countries usually include provisions for setting up migration control centres, bolstering local coast guards, and implementing stricter border surveillance measures.

The recent agreement with Egypt illustrates the EU’s border externalisation practices. Described by human rights organisations as a 'cash for migrant control' deal, the EU will send a €7.4 billion package to Egypt to prevent departures towards Europe. This is despite the Sisi regime’s authoritarian rule and history of wrongful deportations and detention of refugees and migrants, as well as the torturing and jailing of political opponents. Similar agreements have been signed this year with Mauritania and Tunisia.

Several human rights organisations have highlighted that migrants intercepted or detained in transit countries routinely face severe human rights abuses. Human Rights watch has documented abuses by Tunisian police and military, including ‘forced evictions and racist attacks’, arbitrary detention, and the dumping of asylum seekers in the desert ‘with insufficient food and water’.

A UN fact-finding mission reported the ‘murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape and other inhumane acts’ endured by migrants and refugees in Libya, with which the EU has renewed its collaboration to retain and pushback refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean.

Disguising it under the language of “cooperation”, “partnership” and “border management”, the New Pact, through these agreements, increasingly shifts the burden of migration management to countries with abysmal human rights’ records, endangering the lives of migrants and undermining international human rights norms that the EU purports to champion, while it wilfully and shamefully turns a blind eye instead.

Europe's rightward descent on migration

The New Pact received broad political support from mainstream parties in the EU Parliament. While far-right parties have always pushed for tougher migration controls, centrist and centre-left parties are now also on board. This isn’t a new phenomenon but rather a growing trend over the past years.

In Germany, for example, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) recently announced a tightening of migration policies and an acceleration of deportations, while Spain's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), despite their generally progressive platform on other issues, has negotiated migration management deals with African countries to curb arrivals to the Canary Islands modelled on those negotiated by other EU MS.

Some countries wish to push things even further: after the adoption of the New Pact in April this year, fifteen EU member states, ranging from Denmark’s Social Democrats to Italy’s hard right-wing governing coalition, published an open letter proposing to build a “fairer, more humane, sustainable” asylum system. In reality, the proposals are none of these. The letter calls for a further expansion of border externalisation, as well as bringing rescued migrants at sea to countries outside the EU, reminiscing Britain’s infamous Rwanda asylum plan.

These policies and political statements reveal a broader rightward trend in European politics concerning migration and a worrying policy convergence across the political spectrum, aligning centrist and centre-left parties with right-wing policies. Resistance to EU migration policies are, at the moment, relegated to radical left-wing parties, NGOs, and other voices from civil society.

A bleak future for migrants and refugees

By expanding and entrenching border externalisation through the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, European countries are building an additional layer of repression and control of migrants and refugees. While boats drowning in the Mediterranean Sea occasionally sparked outrage among the public across Europe, the abuse and death occurring in African countries are much easier to hide and ignore, as well as harder to document.

There is no doubt that the governance of migration is a complex issue. But nothing can justify the killing and abuse of people fleeing poverty, climate change, conflict and persecution, or simply seeking a better life. European countries have blood on their hands and should be held accountable for their inhumane policies.

Tommaso Segantini is a freelance writer with a background in international relations and refugee studies. He focuses on the European Union’s border policies and on gender-related aspects of migration. His work has appeared on Jacobin, openDemocracy, and Adbusters.

Follow him on X: @tomhazo

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