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On 17 March Caritas Europa launch their report ‘Migrants and refugees have rights! Impact of EU policies on accessing protection’ in the European Parliament. MEP Cecilia Wikström hosted the event and remarked on the timeliness of the report, as Head of States at the same time negotiated a deal with Turkey that is about ‘outsourcing our responsibility’ for migrants and refugees, and ‘racing to the bottom’ in terms of human rights. ‘This is not a crisis for the EU, it is a crisis for people fleeing war and persecution’, said Ms Wikström. We need to rethink the Dublin regulation so people’s request for asylum apply for the EU as a whole and not only for one Member States, our internal borders should be kept open while we maintain our external. We also need to continue welcoming regular migrants with all skill sets, concluded Ms Wikström.

Patrick Taran from Global Migration Policy Associates reminded the participants ‘to get the facts right’ 260.000 people has died in Syria, 7 millions are displaced within the country, 4.5 millions has fled to neighbouring countries, and only very few has made it to Europe. Most come from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea. As a comparison, in the 1940’s 14.400 was pushed away from Germany per day, in 1956 80.000 Hungarians fled to Austria and within days they were all resettled. We have done it before and we can do it again. Europe needs migration to survive, established Mr Taran. While I found Mr Taran’s historical comparison interesting I also asked myself if resistance today does not partly derive from the simply fact that Syrians and Afghans are not Germans and Hungarians. They are considered strangers and not our next door neighbours. Therefore they are meet with, in the best case curiosity and scepticism, and in the worst case direct discrimination, xenophobia and violent racism.

The report is available on Caritas Europa’s website, and it urges EU decision-makers to:

• Open more safe and legal paths to Europe. More precise solutions and policy options are presented in the report.
• Guarantee the right to asylum and grant international protection to those who need it.
• Respect the principle of non-refoulement and refrain from using forced returns and practices that violate human rights, such as detention and the use of coercion.
• Ensure full implementation of the right to family reunification and broaden the definition of family members to effectively respect the right to family life.
• Develop the EU labour migration framework to ensure that safe and legal routes to Europe exist for low-skilled workers and fight against labour exploitation.