Until 2015, most countries in the Union were able to act as if the issue of migrants arriving on European soil only concerned the Mediterranean coastal countries (Greece, Italy, Spain). The Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that the country responsible for examining an asylum seeker’s application is the first member state they enter in the Union, provided a legal justification for this indifference. When in 2015, the flow of migrants from Turkey suddenly surged, certain European countries, led by Germany, decided to temporarily suspend the regulation to welcome these migrants. However, their surge of generosity was not matched by an effort of solidarity across the Union. The member states struggled to agree on a deal committing them to accept a quota of migrants who had arrived in Greece and Italy onto their respective territories.
External subcontractors. However, each country applied this agreement as it saw fit, or not at all, like some Central and Eastern European countries. Following this, citing the need to avoid drownings in the Mediterranean, the Union countries sought external subcontractors to block the migrants before they reached European soil and thus avoid having to examine their asylum applications. This led to an agreement signed with Turkey in March 2016, in which Turkey committed, in exchange for financial concessions, to prevent migrants from leaving its territory to reach Greece.
The numerical success of this method prompted Italy to equip the Libyan coast guard, whose ties with traffickers and militias controlling entire regions of the country are ambiguous, to intercept migrant boats leaving their country. Indeed, departures from Libya dropped in 2018, and it was towards Spain that migrants left Africa in greater numbers last year.
Y. M., Alternatives รฉconomiques
