My speech at the EESC on the Europeanisation of Migration Policy and Threat of Asylum Instrumentalisation
"Subcontracting borders is one of the greatest threats to European sovereignty, and makes it vulnerable to extortion by authoritarian states"
Hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee’s (EESC) Section for External Relations (REX), the conference was held in the context of the EESC’s work on the Commission's Communication “Responding to state-sponsored instrumentalisation of migrants at the EU external border (JOIN (2021) 32 final).” The conference aimed to discuss issue of asylum instrumentalisation - seen in Turkey, Morocco, and Belarus - in light of the Ukrainian refugee crisis, as well as the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive in response. The conference opened with Commissioner SCHINAS, Commissioner for Promoting our European Way of Life and Mr. Jean MAFART, French Director for International and European Affairs at the French Presidency of the EU Council before giving the floor to two expert panels and questions from the Committee. My speech was part of the panel on the geopolitical impact of the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Policies.
Your Excellencies, distinguished Members of the Committee, ladies and gentlemen,
Before I start, I would like to thank the EESC for including all stakeholders of the discussion on the Europeanisation of Migration Policy because one voice has been missing from this debate :)
What Lessons can be drawn from instrumentalisation of asylum seekers (not migrants) and the war in Ukraine? For people who do not understand “Eurospeech,” I am happy to translate: Why did the EU give some asylum seekers protection and let others drown in the Mediterranean or freeze in Forests? What does this mean for the EU’s subcontracting of its external borders?
I was invited here because I hold the double legitimacy card of being a governance scholar and a young person who lived with the consequences of the current EU migration and asylum policy. Hence, I would like to share three points today:
First, share my personal experience in living the EU’s asylum policies because we are often left to news reports instead of relevant chambers such as this place;
Second, communicate lessons of frustration, resilience, and hope related to the ad-hoc nature of European asylum policy;
Finally, present my work on algorithmic matching in the case of refugees and how it worked for Ukrainian refugees.
The three points I discuss today relate to my journey from Aleppo to Brussels, framing the asylum policy problem from the perspective of refugees, and presenting a multi-level asylum policy proposal based on matching and allocation.
So what’s my story?
My story is not unique or different to anyone who fled war. When I left home, I told my family that I was going to spend the summer working in Turkey and would return in time before my university semester resumed. I only took a back bag with the most valuable thing any 19-year-old would take. My laptop! :)
This laptop was bought using the dowry from my mother’s wedding so I could go to university. If anything, it is the reason I am now an Oxford scholar, the first Syrian to work for the European Parliament, undergoing a prestigious doctorate programme, and talking to you in this respected institution. At the same time, this laptop is the last physical memory I have of my mother whom I have not seen in the last 9 years because of the current European migration and asylum policy…
I could’ve brought my empty back bag to ask you to put your most valuable item (as is common in German schools) or draw parallels with the experience of European refugees through history, but I am confident that the honourable members of this Committee are not interested in theatrics but in solutions and policies.
Remember that most asylum seekers spend their life savings to undergo the journey after being unrooted from their homes, and that most asylum seekers are not “illegal economic migrants” which is a title best fit for Swiss residents buying cheap alcohol in southern Germany (in a joking tone).
So, what did we learn from the last refugee crisis:
We learned the hard way that subcontracting borders is one of the greatest threats to European sovereignty, and makes it vulnerable to extortion by authoritarian states. We learned that the Dublin Agreement touches on two aspects of an asylum experience, both in terms of freedom of movement to enter, and travel within the EU, but also in terms of the different criteria and regulations that Member States use in making their asylum decisions. All of these limitations were scrapped when Europe faced the latest crisis, because the EU realised that it cannot let “certain states” blackmail its humanitarian response.
The Temporary Protection Directive taught us that not all refugees need the same type of hosting or integration, and those refugees want to return when it is safe. Yet, we still see asylum seekers drowning in the Mediterranean and freezing in forests, without even having an application processed or a hearing planned. The reason we can call them “illegal economic migrants” is because they never applied for asylum which is legally correct, but morally hideous.
We also learned that aid is limited, and the EU’s humanitarian pledges significantly decreased to other war zones (e.g., Syria got around 20% of needed aid at the 6th Brussels-Syria conference held three days before this conference). Authoritarian states and non-state actors such as human smugglers in Europe’s neighbourhood become the main beneficiaries of the EU’s policies, which in practice turned refugees into currency, and unfortunately a cheap one.
As the war in Ukraine continues, the large humanitarian food crises in the Middle East and Central Africa will only exacerbate under extractive authoritarian regimes, pushing people to flee in larger numbers, and many authoritarian states are watching the refugee market to see how much the EU would pay for them to imprison their own people (something they already do for free).
This is where my work on matching comes:
We learned that various allocation and matching systems - rising from citizens, civil society organisations, and private businesses - can shoulder the financial burden of hosting, but the role of the state in vetting and allocation plays a larger role than expected. Yet interestingly, there is almost no data on refugee preferences, but refugees are treated as passive objects to be saved.
I study migration governance through the lens of matching theory, first used to match organ donors with patients and to allocate resident doctors to hospitals by Nobel Laureate in Economics Alvin Roth. This February, I started working on matching Ukrainian asylum seekers with hosts in Italy and Germany, but faced a number of issues:
Supply and demand imbalance where we had 10 hosts for every refugee in Italy, but not enough refugees wanted to settle in Italy;
Issue with balancing state interest in refugee allocation and refugee interests in matching or free choice of location of living;
Identification and authentication of refugees and hosts, especially asylum seekers with no identification or are from states that do not share data with the EU.
I am working on a multi-level system that involves private sponsors, Member States, and refugees to express their interests and priorities to be matched or allocated according to preferences, need, urgency, and hosting capacity. Indeed, allocations (such as the Königsteiner Schlüssel) can be an extreme option, but no rules cannot be the solution. We already know that refugees will find their ways around the system if they feel that it does not have their interest at heart. Remember, trust is key!
A new framework for asylum policy does not infringe on state sovereignty, but strengthens it as it opens the door for European citizens and businesses to support Member States in integration. So far, EU asylum policy has significantly developed from the 1990s, and has improved with every crisis, highlighting the role of crisis management in EU integration. This is the moment the EU can say “enough is enough” to extortion and insults to its values.
A new asylum policy can enrich the EU’s labour market with ambitious, motivated, and capable refugees, as well as involve European citizens in supporting and claiming EU policies. This is the only way to end the political deadlock which weakens the EU’s normative power and plays into the hands of its adversaries.
Ending:
If I could have been matched from Aleppo to Brussels, both the EU and I could have benefited from such a policy, but instead the EU pushed me and a million other Syrians in 2015 to alternative routes. Seven years later, Syrians have the highest rate of foreign doctors in Germany which was our response to the pandemic plaguing the old continent. Today refugees have been volunteering in mass to support new arrivals and are happy that the EU is improving its asylum policy. Let’s work together for the future of Europe while learning from its history.
I will end with a quote from Hannah Arendt, a refugee that Europe lost: “migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women, and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all, for being more.”
Europe has gone a long way since 2015. Let’s be smart, pragmatic, but not forget the never again that brought all of us together in this room.
Thank you.
12.05.2022
