Keir Starmer will face more pressure to revive the Tories’ Rwanda migrant deportation scheme today with the European Union expected to approve a similar scheme.
Migration will dominate an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels today, after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called for ‘innovative ways to counter illegal migration’.
The bloc is taking an increasingly hard line against external migrants, with Poland calling for action against and Belarus using them as a weapon.
But the hottest discussion will be on how to deal with irregular migrants arriving in the 27-nation bloc by land from the east and by sea from the south in what most EU governments see as a political and security risk that is fuelling the rise of populist and far-right parties and influencing elections.
In a letter to the bloc’s leaders, Ms von der Leyen said they should consider the development of ‘return hubs outside the EU’ for those with no right to stay in Europe.
These would likely house failed asylum seekers sent from the EU when they are served with deportation orders.
Sir Keir made axing the Rwanda scheme one of his first acts after winning the election.
Migration will dominate an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels today, after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen (right) called for ‘innovative ways to counter illegal migration’.
The bloc is taking an increasingly hard line against external migrants, with Poland calling for action against Russia and Belarus using them as a weapon (border above), and others urging sharper laws to protect the southern borders.
Sir Keir made axing the Rwanda scheme one of his first acts after winning the election.
Ms von der Leyen’s call represents an about-turn from Brussels bosses on how to tackle illegal migration.
Ylva Johansson, the EU’s commissioner for home affairs, previously blasted Britain’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed.
‘Sending asylum seekers more than 6,000 km away and outsourcing asylum processes is not a humane and dignified migration policy,’ she said in 2022.
Irregular migrants arriving in Europe last year numbered less than a third of the 1 million seen during the migration crisis in 2015. In the first nine months of this year the number fell even more to 166,000, data from the EU’s Frontex border agency showed.
But the number of people arriving at the EU’s border with Belarus surged 192 per cent year-on-year in January-September to 13,195 and the number of arrivals in the Spanish Canary islands off the western coast of Africa doubled to 30,616, Frontex said.
Diplomats noted that while the irregular arrivals were falling, public perception was different, fuelled by outrage over incidents like the Solingen knife attack by an Islamic state perpetrator in Germany in August.
Migration has become one of the top political priorities in most EU countries, a senior EU diplomat said, adding that right wing politicians framed events like Solingen as a failure of the immigration debate.
‘It’s populist parties using fear to turn this issue into something that helps them, and the result is that in order to battle this perception, you actually need to do something,’ the senior EU diplomat said.
Germany, wary of a public opinion backlash against irregular migration ahead of elections next September, has introduced border controls with all its neighbours, suspending the freedom of the passport-free Schengen zone. France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Slovenia have also introduced border checks.
Poland, which has presidential elections due in May, wants to temporarily suspend asylum rights for migrants crossing over from Russia-ally Belarus, in a move many see as a violation of the EU’s charter of fundamental rights.
Warsaw says it draws its inspiration from Finland, which, faced with migrants pushed across the border from Russia, suspended such asylum rights in July.
The EU agreed in May on a new set of rules and processes for handling migration, called the Migration Pact, but its full implementation is not due until mid-2026, leaving the bloc in a complicated transition period.
Further complicating matters, the Migration Pact has no instruments to deal with the ‘weaponisation’ of migration by countries like Russia, nor does it solve the thorny issue of sending back migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected.
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Publish date : 2024-10-17 04:14:00
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