The EU breaks a taboo and will finance projects to equip anti-immigration walls

The European Union declares itself "resolved to guarantee effective control of its external land and sea borders" and will respond with more fences, more technology and more pressure on the countries of origin to try to contain the arrival of migrants and reverse the trend that is observed since 2022, when 330,000 irregular entries and 924,000 asylum applications were detected, the highest figures since before the pandemic.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
14 February 2023 Tuesday 03:33
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The EU breaks a taboo and will finance projects to equip anti-immigration walls

The European Union declares itself "resolved to guarantee effective control of its external land and sea borders" and will respond with more fences, more technology and more pressure on the countries of origin to try to contain the arrival of migrants and reverse the trend that is observed since 2022, when 330,000 irregular entries and 924,000 asylum applications were detected, the highest figures since before the pandemic.

The European Council agreed in the early hours of Friday the harshest conclusions that are remembered in Brussels on the subject. European leaders “call on the Commission to immediately mobilize substantial EU funds and means to support member states in strengthening border protection capacities and infrastructures, surveillance means, in particular aerial surveillance, and teams," the text states.

Not because of the semantic creativity used in the writing, the collapse of the taboo on the financing of fences or walls is less thunderous. For the first time, the door is open for the EU to finance control infrastructures for its external borders: even if it does not pay for the cement or metal of the barriers, Brussels will be able to finance the necessary equipment to make them work and will mobilize “substantial” resources. to respond to those needs.

“Illegal immigration has to be stopped and money is needed, it doesn't matter if you call it a fence or border infrastructure. Bulgaria needs help to control the border and personnel with good technical equipment. The fences only work if there is effective surveillance”, claimed the chancellor of Austria, Karl Nehammer, one of the 13 signatory countries of the letter sent to the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, before the summit demanding a change in policy.

Almost half of the registered arrivals in 2022 were through the Western Balkans route and Vienna fully supports Sofia's demands to strengthen its border with Turkey. With the agreement of the night before last, the European Commission will finance a pilot project to help the Bulgarian government to finance the necessary technical means to make the current fence, which they want to extend, fulfill its function. Although it is topped with concertinas, it can now be easily jumped over and is not guarded.

The initiative went ahead after a tense debate held after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky left Brussels. "It would be a shame if a wall was built in Europe with European stars on it," criticized the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel. “Now, what is on the table is the Bulgarian border, but it will not stay here, we will see more fences and more walls. Is that the conclusion: we want a Europe fortress? ”, he declared to the press.

However, the pressure exerted by Austria, Hungary, Greece or Bulgaria, among others, since 2015, when a million migrants arrived in the EU, to overcome this taboo was imposed. According to Nehammer, they are committed to ensuring that the Commission assesses all the projects that are presented. Ultra-conservative leaders such as the Hungarian Viktor Orbán and the Italian Giorgia Meloni claimed as a victory the tightening of the EU's migration policy, which also intends to apply pressure measures on the countries of origin such as adopting commercial reprisals, suspending humanitarian aid and paralyzing the granting of visas to countries that refuse to accept asylum seekers whose requests have been rejected and have an expulsion order. Currently, only 21% of these are executed.

Orbán, who was one of the first rulers to respond with barriers to the massive arrival of Syrian refugees in 2015 after Angela Merkel announced that she would open the doors of her country to them, yesterday vindicated the measure. The only problem with his wall, he said, is that it is not tall enough: "Mine is two meters high, but it should be five."

Meloni had other requests, such as applying throughout the EU the code of conduct adopted by his Government for NGOs that carry out rescues on the high seas and there is a commitment to review how this "cooperation" works, but he congratulated himself on the results of the summit . “We got what we asked for, that the conclusions focus on the external dimension and border protection” and “all this is in the text”. On the other hand, it does not say anything new about the requests from the Netherlands and Belgium, which declare themselves "overflowed", to avoid secondary movements of asylum seekers, a measure that is rejected by the countries on the front line, which ask for solidarity to make in front of arrivals.

The conclusions of the summit are also committed to intensifying cooperation with the nations of origin, a policy in which Spain always appears as an example, and President Pedro Sánchez once again vindicated it in Brussels, as did the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, who insisted that the only thing that will stop arrivals will be the improvement of living conditions in their countries. "People leave because in their countries there is no future, there is no peace and there is no stability," he said. European economies, Borrell recalled, "need immigrants", which is why he advocated opening channels for legal immigration. Among the leaders, the idea was only championed by the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. But the emphasis was ultimately clearly placed on repression.

The agreements of this summit are nothing more than the political turn that many countries have taken since 2015. While before the migratory wave of that year there were barely 300 kilometers of walls or fences in the EU, in 2022 the figure rose to 2,000 kilometres. The only condition for them to comply with international law and the obligation to provide asylum is that they have an access door.