Steve Peers
Throughout his extensive three-hour hearing at the European Parliament, Dimitris Avramopolous, the nominee for Commissioner for migration and home affairs, consistently emphasized his commitment to liberal values. He expressed strong support for upholding the Schengen system, adopting a liberal stance on asylum and legal migration, and protecting the freedom of movement for EU citizens. However, he fell short of providing specifics on the implementation of these principles and how the various facets of EU policy in this domain would harmonize.
Focusing initially on legal migration, the prospective Commissioner advocated not only for adjustments to the existing Blue Card regulations concerning highly skilled migration but also for a comprehensive reassessment of EU legal migration rules. In fact, he explicitly endorsed an EU system for legal migration mirroring the inclusive models of Canada and Australia.
However, he failed to present a timeline for introducing reforms in this area, despite the Commission’s recent publication of a report highlighting the challenges in implementing the Blue Card system. It is important to note that potential reforms to this system are readily identifiable. (For a potential model of an EU immigration code, refer to my Statewatch analysis on this topic).
He repeatedly asserted his belief that more relaxed rules on legal migration would mitigate the risks faced by migrants traveling to the EU and reduce irregular migration in general. However, it is doubtful that Member States would consent to granting legal status to all these aspiring migrants. Notably, Article 79(5) TFEU affirms the competence of Member States to determine the intake of economic migrants from non-EU nations.
Regarding asylum law, he seemed to believe that the implementation of the second phase of the Common European Asylum System (slated for July 2015), along with EU legislation on legal migration, would be sufficient to ensure mutual recognition of refugee decisions within the EU. However, existing EU regulations only permit refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection to move freely between Member States after attaining long-term resident status. This requires a minimum of five years of legal residency in a Member State, in addition to meeting other criteria. Moreover, even if they relocate within the EU, their protection status is not automatically transferred (except in the limited cases of movement between the few states that have ratified a Council of Europe Convention addressing this matter).
These restricted opportunities for individuals with international protection to move within the EU fall significantly short of the ‘solidarity, solidarity and solidarity’ principles he invoked in the context of EU asylum law. Achieving true solidarity would necessitate a broader distribution of individuals granted international protection, including asylum-seekers, among Member States. On this latter point, he at least committed to re-evaluating the EU’s controversial Dublin system, which governs responsibility for asylum-seekers. However, as experienced in the previous review, convincing wealthier Member States to agree to changes in responsibility allocation is likely to be an uphill battle.
Mr. Avramopolous expressed his opposition to the concept of a ‘Fortress Europe,’ rejecting the practice of ‘push-backs’ at external borders and distancing himself from a border fence constructed along the Greek/Turkish border by a government he previously served. While he supported a reevaluation of the mandate of Frontex, the EU’s border agency, to potentially encompass search and rescue operations, he did not propose any concrete measures to oversee Member State operations at external borders in the absence of Frontex coordination.
He voiced support for the introduction of humanitarian visas as a means to provide safe passage for protection-seekers to enter the EU, avoiding hazardous journeys. However, his specific proposal in this regard appeared somewhat idealistic. His suggestion to task staff at EU delegations in non-EU countries with reviewing asylum applications, while appealing in theory, faces significant practical challenges in implementation. Operationalizing this plan would require both a fundamental reimagining of the role of EU external delegations and granting EU bodies, rather than solely Member States, a decision-making role in individual visa and asylum cases.
A more straightforward approach, immediately implementable without such intricate legal and political hurdles, would involve explicitly incorporating an obligation for Member States to issue humanitarian visas to asylum-seekers at their external consulates into EU legislation. It can be argued that such an obligation is already implicitly present within the EU’s current visa code. The ongoing negotiations on the proposed revisions to the visa code present a timely opportunity to codify this rule explicitly into EU law.
In conclusion, while the prospective Commissioner demonstrates a commendable commitment to the core principles underpinning a liberal immigration policy for the EU, his grasp of the practical intricacies and overall coherence of such a policy appears to require further development.
Barnard & Peers: chapter 25, chapter 26