The European Union’s Pilates policy on migrants is still very much alive. For years, many summits, business lunches, rivers of words, only to continue to leave member states alone to their fate, especially those on the front line like Italy and Greece. And so, not forgetting, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stressed in Brussels, during the meeting of the Commissioners on February 8, the importance of directing the discussions of heads of state or government towards “specific goals”, warning against falling into the “trap” of focusing Exclusively on the approximately 330,000 irregular crossings of the EU’s external borders registered in 2022, among others, a record since 2016. In other words, according to von der Leyen, “the majority of asylum seekers” in the EU “do not They need international protection, and therefore, member states should focus on increasing the return of those who do not have the right to stay, given that only one-fifth of those whose asylum application was rejected in the Union are then already returned home.Therefore, the rules must be followed, he added. In addition, people who have not been able to obtain refugee status should be repatriated efficiently to their countries of origin.

In other words, member states, get busy. Thus, instead of building bridges, Brussels is building walls. And very long. The real hurdle to overcome is the need to reform the Dublin Regulation, which came into force in 1997 and is now in its widely criticized third edition. It is the document that states, among other things, that the country of first arrival of migrants is required to take charge of their asylum claims, a mechanism that, according to many, places excessive responsibilities on a few countries, such as Italy and Greece, which, due to their geographical location, represent , the mandatory entry point for hundreds of thousands of people each year. However, according to the President of the European Commission, in order to efficiently manage migration flows, it is of “fundamental importance” to ensure that EU legislators, the Council and Parliament “adopt all the elements of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum by the end of this Commission’s mandate”, that is, within the first few months. From 2024.

Infrastructure and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said: “The landings are multiplying, not increasing – now we need a strong and rapid intervention, we need an intervention to protect the borders. On the other hand, if Europe deals with rented wombs, refrigerators, greenhouses… ». The UN Human Rights Council itself “slapped” the European Union. After three years of investigation and “overwhelming evidence”, in a report issued by the United Nations, on people stranded in Libya, while trying to reach Europe, they are subjected to systematic torture and forced into sexual slavery. The report criticized the European Union for “the support provided to the Libyan Coast Guard in terms of deportation, response and interception operations.” We are not saying that the European Union and its member states have committed these crimes. “The important point is that the support given helped and favored the commission of the crimes,” said one of the panelists, Chaloka Biyani.