2023-09-23 11:01:18
For the first time, Union politicians are talking openly about fundamentally new ways to limit migration, which they previously only wanted to talk about in the background. Some suggest revising the international legal foundations of migration policy – the Geneva Refugee Convention, the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. At the CDU they include the deputy chairman Jens Spahn and the parliamentary manager Thorsten Frei.
Justus Bender
Editor in politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Jochen Buchsteiner
Political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.
Konrad Schuller
Political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.
Others are considering how the right to asylum could also be realized “outside Europe”. The spokesmen here are Frei and the head of the CSU in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt. Still others wonder whether boat refugees could be brought back to Africa directly from the Mediterranean using European naval ships. They include the Saxon Interior Minister Armin Schuster and the Saxony-Anhalt Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff.
But there are also signs of movement in the government coalition. FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai now says that it is noticeable throughout the country “that we need a different migration policy” and that “more management, control and restrictions on migration” are needed. FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr is now saying so clearly for the first time that Germany must “stop the incentives for irregular migration by switching from cash to benefits in kind.” They now also want to “talk” about stationary controls on the border with Poland, as demanded in the Union.
The ideas from the Union would be a “paradigm change,” as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed in mid-September. According to her, the EU should concentrate on preventing illegal entries at the external borders, instead of relying primarily on repatriation and redistribution within the EU, as is currently the case. These old means also appear to some in the Union parties to be ineffective. Haseloff says, for example: “Whoever is in, is in. The chances of repatriating someone are slim.”
The fact that the CDU and CSU are now thinking about changes to the foundations of international law is also due to the fact that the Geneva Refugee Convention, the original document to which many other regulations refer, protects every refugee from this through the “refoulement ban” in Article 33. being sent back to a country where his life or freedom would be in danger. The EU Convention on Human Rights, a Council of Europe document, also states that no one should be subjected to “degrading” treatment. As a result, the courts have recently significantly expanded the protection criteria for migrants. For some judges, this also includes a worse medical or economic situation.
Spahn: The refugee convention can be changed
Some in the CDU no longer want to accept this. Spahn believes that the Refugee Convention was “not sent by God to Moses, but can be changed,” and Frei wants Germany to work for the “revision of the European Convention on Human Rights” as well as for a change in EU law. But both paths are thorny. The 46 states of the Council of Europe would have to agree on a new interpretive framework for the human rights convention.
The proposal to stop boat migrants on the Mediterranean using European warships and bring them back to Africa is particularly strongly advocated by Saxon Interior Minister Schuster. In his opinion, the prerequisite for this is agreements with North African states modeled on the agreement with Turkey from 2016. “They would then undertake not to allow any more refugees into Europe on irregular routes and to take back those who do make it over,” says Schuster. “In return, Europe would promise to accept a certain number of legal immigrants from there.” The partner states would be rewarded with money, but possibly also with visa facilitation and other things.
#Europe #close #maritime #border