Commission divisions open over asylum ahead of EU elections

A similar proposal was inserted into the political manifesto of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and endorsed by European commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her bid for a second term.

But Johansson, a Swedish socialist, said such ideas are not allowed under revised EU laws, known as the pact on migration and asylum.

“If your question is about whether the pact opens for a solution, which could look like what the UK is doing with Rwanda, the answer is no,” she told reporters in Strasbourg.

And to drive her point, she said people applying for asylum in Europe cannot be sent away to another country. “There’s no open front for that in the pact,” she said.

A recent Italy deal with Albania differs because it is under Italian jurisdiction and successful asylum applicants would be transferred to Italy, she said. And concepts deeming a country safe are also fine, she said, noting EU states can dismiss asylum claims on that basis before returning them there.

EPP and Rwanda

But her comment against Rwanda is politically significant. It follows von der Leyen’s announcement that she hopes to secure a second term as commission president.

Earlier this month, she declared her candidacy under the EPP political banner and backed its manifesto that echoes the UK plans to outsource asylum to Rwanda.

The manifesto says anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. “In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite,” it said.

Rights campaigners say this is unlawful, noting the mounting legal problems faced by the UK government as well as costs. Among the dissenting voices is Stephanie Pope, a migration policy expert at Oxfam, an international aid organisation.

“Cynical plans to deport asylum seekers to non-EU countries contradict international, European and EU law,” she said, in an emailed statement.

“This is proven by the fact that courts have prevented a single deportation to Rwanda so far,” she added.

Similar views were expressed by Catherine Woollard who heads the Brussels-based European Council on Refugees and Exiles.

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“First, the manifesto suggests refusing entry at the borders if the safe third country concept is applied and humanitarian pathways with ‘quotas’ are in place. In these circumstances, it will not become lawful to deny access to people seeking asylum at the borders. Under EU and international law states still have an obligation to allow access to an asylum procedure,” she said.

And she also took issue with ideas to temporarily suspend asylum applications, should Belarus or Russia for example, shuffle people across an EU border.

“This highlights a strange paradox in the manifesto — why is it arguing for ‘a fundamental change in European asylum law’ when the EU has just concluded eight years of reform?,” she said, adding that those reforms were largely driven by the EPP.

The far-right

The EPP is courting the far-right by doubling down on migration amid polls suggesting their voters will turn out en masse. And its president, German Manfred Weber, has in the past demanded the EU finance border walls in statements that appear to appease the far-right.

Last year, the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) declared Weber their “poster boy” in stemming migration. “If he is adopting our policies, then maybe he should come and work for us,” said an ID spokesperson.

But it is unclear if the EPP gamble to seize far-right voters will work.

Margaritis Schinas, the vice-president of the European Commission, has described the December agreement on the EU’s asylum pact as a means to curtail far-right.

But a late January study by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank, still predicts big wins for the far right. It said the ID will likely gain an additional 40 seats in the European Parliament.

Schinas, a centre-right Greek politician, is now framing opposition to the pact by equating support to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, a wanted war criminal.

“Who doesn’t like the agreement on the pact? Putin’s friends do not like the agreement on the pact — the extreme right and the extreme left, they are sniping against the pact,” he said, earlier this week in Strasbourg.