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Refugee crisis: New Statewatch Analyses 20..3.16

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01 March 2016

- Italy: Mass discrimination based on nationality and human rights violations – Nigerian refugees and trafficking victims deported from Rome (pdf) by Yasha Maccanico:

Europe’s answer to the refugee crisis has so far been to intensify existing policies and practices, conveniently overlooking their role in the genesis of the problem and in demeaning the rule of law in its member states.

- EU/Italy Commission requires large scale abuse of migrants for relocation to proceed (pdf) by Yasha Maccanico:

On 15 December 2015, the Commission’s “Progress report on the implementation of hotspots in Italy” was sent to the European Parliament and the Council, calling for further progress to be made in the fields of hotspots, relocation, returns, border management and reception capacity. Lamenting the slow progress in implementing “European Union Law” to build a “Common European Asylum System” in mid-October, the Commission called on Italy to “operationalise all hotspots”, make “full use of the existing detention capacity” while reforming norms on detention and ensuring “swift” transfers to either “second-line reception facilities” or “detention centres”.

- Reinforcing the Fortress Commission’s priority actions for the refugee situation (pdf) by Zak Suffee:

The EU’s response to the refugee situation has included the deployment of warships, plans for mass refoulement and the possible introduction of “one-for-one” schemes, none of which were mentioned in the priority actions proposed by the European Commission in February 2016.

The priority actions, entitled the ‘State of Play of Implementation of the Priority Actions under the European Agenda on Migration’ [1] aims to address the refugee situation by way of a number of priority actions which can be summarised under the following headings: 1) the future of Greece; 2) securing the EU; 3) hotspot management; 4) returns and readmissions; and 5) Management of financial resources in and outside the European Union.

- The final EU/Turkey refugee deal: a legal assessment (pdf) by Professor Steve Peers (University of Essex):

The EU and Turkey have now reached an agreement on refugee issues, which has aroused considerable legal and political controversy. To examine the arguments about the deal, I present here the main text with my legal assessment of each point annotated. This builds upon my comments (together with Emanuela Roman) first of all in general on the relevant points last month, and then secondly on the leaked draft text of the final deal earlier this week (I have reused here some of the latter analysis where relevant). The agreement should be read alongside the EU summit conclusions, as well as the Commission communication on the deal. It incorporates the March 7 EU/Turkey statement which addressed the same issues in less detail.