Caritas Europa: The EU agenda behind the Migration Partnership Framework
In this in-depth analysis, migration and development expert, Bob van Dillen, exposes the weaknesses of the European Commission’s Migration Partnership Framework and questions its capacity to really serve the purpose of helping people in need. Additionally, the author lays down a series of urgent actions that, if applied, will not only truly help people in need but will also put Europe back to its very foundations; those of international solidarity and protection of human rights and dignity.
A few weeks ago, Syrian refugees were shot and injured by Turkish border guards. Eight people lost their lives, including four children. Reports on ill-treatment of refugees at the Syrian-Turkish border are not new. It would be new if the EU would publicly recognise these atrocities and draw the logical solution to review the EU-Turkey deal signed in March. Instead the EU prefers to look away or close its eyes, so that this deal may be upheld. What agenda is the EU pursuing and what policy changes are needed instead?
Recently, the European Commission proposed the Migration Partnership Framework (MPF) as a series of combined instruments to prevent refugees and migrants from crossing European borders, and to ensure that many of them return to their countries of origin – whether these are deemed safe countries or not. Like with previous policy initiatives, the MPF was misguidedly presented as yet another European effort to prevent people from drowning in the Mediterranean and to address the root causes of violence and extreme poverty that force people to flee their homelands. The proposals are packaged and framed as ‘saving lives’, ‘creating opportunities and tackling root causes’, and (suggesting two-way consultations and agreements) ‘reinforced cooperation with third countries’.
The reality is that the EU is stepping up efforts to keep migrants and refugees out at any cost, threatening countries of origin or transit to reduce development aid or withdraw trade preferences should they not cooperate with migrants’ return. In EU speak, they combine the use of ‘positive and negative incentives’. At a high cost: because taking money away from long-term structural development programs will eventually only harm the people whom the EU should protect.
