EU: Covid-19 Does Not Suspend Asylum Rights

by John Richardson
May 5, 2020 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15976/eu-covid-19-immigration

Translations of this item:

Czech
Danish

Persons "in need of international protection or for other humanitarian reasons", however, are exempted from these restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries." — European Commission statement, March 30, 2020.
This means that people who apply for international protection cannot be turned away and that the rights of migrants and refugees to apply for asylum cannot be suspended, even in the time of coronavirus.
This policy was on display during the recent crisis on the border between Turkey and Greece, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used migrants -- whom Turkey transported to the border with Greece -- as political blackmail, threatening to unleash a new migration crisis on Europe. At least 14,000 migrants were brought to the border, according to media reports.
As much as the EU remains committed to international law, it would seem that under the circumstances of a worldwide pandemic, which has forced countries to go to extremes in terms of limiting the liberties of their own citizens to fight Covid-19, it should be possible to find ways temporarily to suspend the right of third-country nationals to migrate to the EU.

Recent decisions by the European Commission mean that the rights of migrants and refugees to apply for asylum in the EU cannot be suspended, even during the coronavirus pandemic. Pictured: Migrants wait to be transferred from the island of Lesbos to the Greek mainland on May 3, 2020, in Moria. (Photo by Manolis Lagoutaris/AFP via Getty Images)

On March 16, the European Commission recommended a temporary restriction of non-essential travel from third countries into the "EU+ area" for 30 days. On April 8, the European Commission recommended that the temporary restriction be prolonged until May 15. According to the European Commission's press release:

"The Commission's assessment of the current situation points to a continued rise in the number of new cases and deaths across the EU, as well as to the progression of the pandemic outside of the EU, including in countries from where millions of people usually travel to the EU every year. In this context, prolonging the travel restriction is necessary to reduce the risk of the disease spreading further."

According to Margaritis Schinas, the Commission's Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life:

"While we can see encouraging first results, prolonging the travel restriction is necessary to continue reducing the risks of the disease spreading further. We should not yet let the door open whilst we are securing our house."

However, persons "in need of international protection or for other humanitarian reasons" are exempted from these restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries, according to a European Commission document dates March 30, 2020, entitled: "Guidance on the implementation of the temporary restriction on non-essential travel to the EU, on the facilitation of transit arrangements for the repatriation of EU citizens, and on the effects on visa policy". This means that people who apply for international protection cannot be turned away and that the rights of migrants and refugees to apply for asylum cannot be suspended, even in the time of coronavirus.

This policy was on display during the recent crisis on the border between Turkey and Greece, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used migrants -- whom Turkey transported to the border with Greece -- as political blackmail, threatening to unleash a new migration crisis on Europe. At least 14,000 migrants were brought to the border, according to media reports. Greece, at the time, said that it was suspending all asylum applications, based on article 78 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which states:

"In the event of one or more Member States being confronted by an emergency situation characterised by a sudden inflow of nationals of third countries, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may adopt provisional measures for the benefit of the Member State(s) concerned".

The European Commission, however, did not approve. The Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, ordered Greece to allow the migrants that Erdogan transported to the border to apply for asylum.

"Individuals in the European Union have the right to apply for asylum. This is in the treaty, this is in international law. This we can't suspend," said Johansson. Greece has since ended its suspension, which was welcomed by Johansson: "At this time it is important to defend our values and fundamental rights," she said.

Many other things, however, have been suspended because of Covid-19: Europeans have been told to stay at home, schools and kindergartens have shut, people have not been able to go to work and many have lost their jobs. Everything has been done to minimize the spread of Covid-19. Immigration, however, seems one thing that, no matter how dire the situation, the EU is unwilling to suspend.

In addition, on April 16 the European Commission, issued a recommendation that warned EU member states that the registration and processing of asylum applications must continue and member states comply with asylum law.

"Even in a health emergency," Johansson said, "we need to guarantee individual fundamental rights. Any measure taken in the area of asylum, resettlement and return should also take full account of the health protection measures introduced by the member states to prevent the spread of coronavirus."

The guidance says, among other things, that personal interviews with asylum seekers can be carried out by video-conference during the crisis or omitted if necessary, and stresses that quarantine and isolation measures should be adequate and non-discriminatory, and that asylum seekers should have access to good healthcare.

Schinas joined in, saying:

"Today we are acting to support Member States in providing guidance on how to use the flexibility in EU rules to ensure the continuity of procedures as much as possible while fully ensuring the protection of people's health and rights. While our way of life may have changed drastically in the past weeks – our values and principles must not."

The guidance was published in mid-April, at the same time, that the EU began the first relocations of unaccompanied minors from migrant camps on the Greek islands. The relocation included 1,600 unaccompanied minors from Greece to ten EU member states -- Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Luxembourg and Lithuania, as well as non-EU member Switzerland.

Schinas said about the recent relocations:

"This scheme is Europe at its best. In times where coronavirus is taking its toll on everyday life, it is commendable to see Member States honouring their commitments and working together to help vulnerable migrants on the Greek islands. I am grateful to Member States participating in the scheme and hopeful that more will continue to join us."

As much as the EU remains committed to international law, it would seem that under the circumstances of a worldwide pandemic, which has forced countries to go to extremes in terms of limiting the liberties of their own citizens to fight Covid-19, it should be possible to find ways temporarily to suspend the right of third-country nationals to migrate to the EU.

John Richardson is a researcher based in the United States.

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Related Topics: Coronavirus, Europe's Migrant Crisis

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Comment on this item

21 Reader Comments

Adrian • May 6, 2020 at 10:51

EU should be held responsible for the deaths that this decision will cause.

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Derek • May 5, 2020 at 15:04

This very thing, the exemptions for illegal border crossers with CCP virus has occurred at a irregular border crossing in Quebec. Justin Trudeau has virtually adopted the EU position on a number of issues not least of which is his snipping at Trumps heels... behind his back, or course.

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Glenwood Jarman • May 5, 2020 at 13:35

I have a question for Ylva Johansson: International law states that those who seek asylum are to apply in the closest country, and since Turkey already possesses these people who pretend to be seeking asylum, Greece has no obligation to accept them and since Turkey is not part of the European Union, it cannot just send them across the border.

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Rosandy • May 5, 2020 at 13:29

Healthy people in the UK are under house arrest with the threat of being charged, fined and even jailed if they dare go out. Meanwhile the Border Farce Ferry Service aided by the Coastguard and Royal Navy are going out into the English Channel to collect the boatloads of illegals heading for shore. Ambulances waiting on the quay to transport them to hospital for a check up. Meanwhile we have had 100 plus front line medical staff dying on the job through infection by Covid 19, yet instead of turning these invaders back to France, they go and collect them to bring to the UK!
The Globalist agenda can't be allowed to slow down not even by a pandemic it seems.

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Hamish MacDonald

Rosandy • May 5, 2020 at 20:57

Indeed.
The UK is unwilling to face up to its inadequacies.
Until it does, it will continue to persecute its own citizens, particularly those of Judeau-Christian orientation, while it favours others who have not the slightest interest in furthering the golden rule.

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Peter Trott

Rosandy • May 6, 2020 at 04:09

The nations of the world cannot be expected to accept foreigners, just because these foreigners turn up at their border. This recent madness of foreigner-invasion must stop.
Nations need to take responsibility to sort out their own problems, not expect to be permitted to inflict them on other nations.

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Bisley • May 5, 2020 at 13:06

The problem isn't in a temporary suspension of asylum claims (and any sovereign nation has the right to control its borders and immigration in any way it pleases), but in the EU definition of who may claim asylum, and under what conditions. Asylum cannot be construed to generally include the poor, hungry, oppressed, or people living in violent and dangerous circumstances, or it would have to include most of the population of the world.

To have any practical meaning, asylum claims must be limited to individuals who are persecuted, and whose lives and property are in danger, because of who they are and where they are. Non-Muslims in Muslim countries (where governments can't, or won't protect their rights, lives, or property, or promote and participate in the persecution) is a good example -- and these sorts of people are usually excluded from asylum in the EU. Nor, should anyone who arrives in Europe by any means, legal, or illegal, be eligible.

Illegal immigrants should be excluded from asylum, or any other status that could allow them to remain, be summarily deported, and barred from ever returning. Asylum should be based on individual circumstances, and if a claimant can't gain entry legally, application should be made through a consulate, or embassy elsewhere. Accepting great masses of illegal immigrants (95% of whom are there because they can live in Europe at the public's expense at a higher standard than they could ever achieve by working in their home country), and trying to sort them out later, is impossible, and a form of economic and cultural suicide (which seems to be what the EU wants).

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Rosandy

Bisley • May 6, 2020 at 13:16

These are not asylum seekers, they are an invading army. The majority are well fed, fit military aged young males. most seems to have a better cell phone plan than I have! Why are they not turned around and sent right back to where they came from? I wonder what 'deal' the UK government has made with the Kermits that says we take any amount the send us. I watched the Nigel Farage video on Youtube where he went to Dover and Hastings. He spoke to fishermen; he said they see the boats turn up on the beach almost every night and the occupants do a runner immediately. This means the numbers that the Border Farce Ferry Service go out and collect are only a fraction of the true numbers. When asked if he had reported this to the authorities, the fishermen said that he reported it to the police and no one bothered to come out. Obviously they have been told to turn a blind eye.
In the words of Enoch Powell "It's like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up it's own funeral pyre".

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Bisley

Rosandy • May 6, 2020 at 15:59

This is all intentional and political. Socialist-globalists have taken over nearly all of Europe's major political parties (including the supposedly conservative ones, and in the UK), and are importing these people to serve their interests. They want them to help destroy the cultures, traditions and national loyalties that provide the basis for the existing order of things, so they can replace it with their own sort of Euro-socialist, globalist system. These people are encouraged to come to create trouble, undermine law, culture, religion, etc. (and vote for the socialists who support them with public money).

This isn't about compassion, or humanity (except for the idiots who believe the propaganda), but part of a campaign to eliminate the independent nations of Europe and eventually roll it all into a sort of EUSSR. If any of the present governments saw it as a problem, they would withdraw from any treaties, agreements, or organisations that limit their actions, and change their laws to remove those who have already come, rather than bring in more. They won't even enforce existing laws against these people. They come because they're allowed to come, and kept at the public's expense thereafter. If they were denied entry, and immediately deported instead of being kept, they wouldn't come.

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Bob Horacek • May 5, 2020 at 11:36

"Individuals in the European Union have the right to apply for asylum. This is in the treaty, this is in international law. This we can't suspend,..." - Johansson.

You made the law, you can change the law, you can suspend the law, you can erase the law. TJohanssonis is simply a lethargic bureaucrat who is more concerned about her own agenda and precious rules vs. doing what is right for the people in the EU. Like so many liberal politicians in the US, she'll tell you she can't do anything (then why the heck should she be in politics?) or she simple outright lies like she did about the rapes in Sweden. I'm sure her home district in Sweden would be happy to take the migrants. She should be replaced.

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Don Gaetano • May 5, 2020 at 10:11

More EU insanity. Not enough damage done yet? Do they really have a civilizational death wish? Thanks for this eye opening reminder of the depravity of the EU leadership. Hopefully they will falter and fail, returning to more of an economic agreement among sovereign nations. Also bulk up militarily to resist the coming invasion of unwanted migration.

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Nemo • May 5, 2020 at 09:03

The Europeans continue to destroy their national identities! Erdogan plays with them as if they were children!

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David • May 5, 2020 at 09:01

It seems nothing can be done to stem the onward march of, to be honest, unwanted and possibly dangerous migrants from wherever.
The laws of a country should first and foremost, be there to protect its citizens, above the 'human rights' of foreigners, and not the other way round.

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Leslie Fish • May 5, 2020 at 07:07

Then the solution is to hand the "refugees" off to somebody else. Greece, and other European countries, should deport their Muslim "migrants" to Mecca, and let the Saudis deal with them. The US should pack up its Latin American "migrants" to Argentina, which is willing to take them. Giving "refugees" asylum doesn't necessarily mean keeping them.

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Peter Fieldman • May 5, 2020 at 06:56

What the Covid-19 has shown is that each country must take responsibility for its own citizens. It is known that refugees and asylum seekers have been abusing the system for years. I believe migration must be stopped during the Covid-19 crisis which has led to a major economic crisis. West Europe cannot cope with millions of people from other continents regardless of their personal situations. Europe is committing suicide

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Raj • May 5, 2020 at 06:53

Which of course shows the absurdity of lawmakers. Let's just let the human surge continue after all the more people we let in the more hands we'll have to fight this contagion, surely there's more strength in numbers. An overwhelmed medical system would be more than capable of handling thousands of more potential hosts of infection! The more the merrier? Is there anyone within the EU itself immune from this evidently more dangerous contagion: ie INSANITY!!? Might be a good time to start making shovels, it's a natural progression from here on.

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cammo99 • May 5, 2020 at 06:34

While the DNC in the USA continue to use the CV19 as an opportunity and we see the skyrocketing death lists NYC where over 20,000 people died; half of all dead died in homes. We now have people coming forward, anecdotal for now, claiming that death tolls have been inflated, deaths have even been caused according to some tearful healthcare admissions as witnesses. In some blue states and sanctuary border towns, judges and Governors have imposed such a strict lockdown with no end in sight. It seems to be with the hope they can institute such laws as to criminalize normally law abiding people who simply have had enough of the UDG man handling their lives.

I am only writing this because one governor described a protest in her state as a racist white supremacist act although there is no proof more than a few of the protesters had such political interests. It is insightful in how a racist and misogynist governor by characterizing everyone who protested her extreme restrictions is in fact a racist by doing so indiscriminately naming anyone who opposes her as a racist.
The equation is changing but the Blue state and members of the House -- people like Pelosi who have used a flu as a opportunity to push radical socialist agendas -- should not be forgiven nor their greedy self ambitions lost.
On the one hand, one might be left concluding that opening borders to "refugees" a term not evenly applied and just wrong in too many cases or is it because Europe is ready to begin the new normal? Are the socialist states of Europe ready to cash in on their exploitation of the flu to impose a restricted life style on an over governed CITIZENRY.

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chris • May 5, 2020 at 06:24

Odd how migrants seeking asylum into the EU have fundamental rights whereas EU citizens don't have fundamental rights eg to leave their homes, socialise, go to work, have free speech, but do have the 'right' to have their money handed over to the migrants. Countries on the borders of Europe were being destroyed economically before the corona crisis, through having to fund millions of migrants. The situation must be one heck of a lot worse now

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chris • May 5, 2020 at 06:18

Johansson: "At this time it is important to defend our values and fundamental rights,"
At this rate there wont be any European values and fundamental rights left to defend.

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Michael Draut • May 5, 2020 at 06:11

Illegal aliens, migrants do not and should not supercede a country's right to reject them. A country's primary responsibility is to its citizens and to maintain its sovereignty. The cost of the entitlements provided to them takes away a country's ability to provide for the care and well of its own citizens. They should apply from their country of origin and IF the country determines they would benefit the country and its citizens then they may be accepted. It is not their choice it's the country's election.

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Graham Richards • May 5, 2020 at 05:27

Time for the western world to dump all agreements/treaties with the UN & affiliated agencies or organisations to be dumped forthwith. We know the EUSSR won't agree so won't discuss further the EUSSR won't be relevant in the next 6 months anyway.
All these agreements / treaties are one big stitch up aimed only at implementing One World Government & it's time the people in the west woke up to all the actual agenda.
Time really to wind up the UN in general!

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