European Union: Refugees

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, for securing this debate. Obviously, it is timely in the light of the current situation both on the Macedonian border with Greece and at our end of Europe in Calais and Dunkirk.

In its very recent report on a more effective EU foreign and security strategy, the European Union Committee said:

“Migrant and refugee inflows are likely to remain a long-term challenge for the Union. So far, Member States have not agreed a collective response to this issue at the EU level. The fractious and polarised debates have battered the reputation of the EU and resulted in a muted response to a pressing security and humanitarian crisis. These internal divisions are likely to undermine Member States’ ability to achieve unity on foreign policy issues”.

The issues covered by this debate are ones that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has raised on a number of occasions before. Indeed, he did so last month when he asked in a Written Question whether,

“EU member states within the Schengen area are issuing a standard form of passport or other document to those they accept as asylum seekers or whether individual countries decide on the format to use”.

I think that the Answer the noble Lord received was that EU member states were actually issuing,

“a refugee status travel document, in the form set out in the Schedule to the Geneva Convention”,

rather than that that was what member states ought to be doing but whether they all were was another matter. Perhaps the Minister could clarify this point in his reply.

The European Council meeting last month stated that the objective of the EU had to be,

“to rapidly stem the flows, protect our external borders, reduce illegal migration and safeguard the integrity of the Schengen area”.

With that last point in mind, the European Council said that there was a need to,

“get back to a situation where all Members of the Schengen Area fully apply the Schengen Borders Code and refuse entry at external borders to third-country nationals who do not satisfy the entry conditions or who have not made an asylum application despite having had the opportunity to do so”.

Reference has already been made in this debate to the intentions of an EU agreement with Turkey.

The European Council expressed the view that,

“with the help of the EU, the setting up and functioning of hotspots”,

in front-line member states to ensure effective reception and registration processes was,

“gradually improving as regards identification, registration, fingerprinting and security checks on persons and travel documents”,

although much remained to be done. What remained to be done included,

“to fully implement the relocation process, to stem secondary flows of irregular migrants and asylum-seekers and to provide the significant reception facilities needed to accommodate migrants under humane conditions while their situation is being clarified”.

The Council reiterated, as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said:

“Asylum seekers do not have the right to choose the Member State in which they seek asylum”.

According to the third quarterly report for last year from the Frontex Risk Analysis Network, that quarter saw the highest ever reported numbers of illegal border crossings since data collection began in 2007, with the figure being not far short of 620,000. Most illegal border crossings—almost 320,000—were reported on the eastern Mediterranean route, with almost all accounted-for detections being on the eastern Aegean islands. Around 70% of the irregular migrants on this route claimed to be of Syrian nationality, with some 17% saying they were of Afghan nationality.

In the third quarter of 2015, the number of detected undocumented Syrian nationals within the EU, at almost 90,000, more than tripled compared to the previous quarter, and there were significant increases in the number of illegal stayers from Bangladesh, Iran and Iraq. Also during the third quarter of last year, EU member states reported more than 405,000 asylum applications—an almost 150% increase on the same period in 2014. Almost two-thirds submitted their application in the top three countries—Germany, Hungary and Sweden—although apparently most asylum seekers in Hungary absconded to apply for asylum in another country. The figures also showed that Syrians were the top-ranking asylum nationality in the EU Schengen area, with more than 137,000 applications in the third quarter of last year, followed by Afghan, Iraqi and Albanian nationals.

As a result of the increasing number of migrants arriving in the EU, several Schengen member states have introduced or reintroduced temporary border controls at their borders with other Schengen member states. At the end of last year the European Commission proposed establishing a European border and coast guard, with a view to ensuring a strong, shared management of external borders. The Commission also proposed to introduce systematic checks against relevant databases for all people entering or exiting the Schengen area.

The subject matter of this debate refers to an assessment of the security of the European Union’s borders. It is clear that the EU’s borders are not secure and probably cannot be secure in the face of the large-scale migration arising mainly from the current and continuing conflicts in the Middle East. However, our own borders are not secure either in the sense that we do not have much control over the numbers of people coming to this country. The lack of response from the Government when asked to give even an estimate of the level of net migration for this year and next year is eloquent testimony to that lack of control.

At times there also appears to be a certain lack of enthusiasm on the Government’s part for engaging with EU member states, particularly on migration and border control issues. Interestingly, the subject matter of this debate also asks what discussions the Government have had with the Governments of other EU member states about the documentation of those individuals they accept as refugees. Of course, that is a question to which only the Minister can really provide a response. Relevant and appropriate though that question is, and relevant and appropriate though the measures the EU wants to take to try to secure its borders may be, the only real solution to the present situation is to address the causes of the large-scale migration currently taking place—and that will require a mutual determination to do so on the part of the major powers, including the EU, which currently seems to be lacking.