The European Union must "learn the lessons" behind the terrorist attack that this Monday cost the lives of two Swedish citizens in the streets of Brussels and strengthen the mechanisms for the expulsion of immigrants in an irregular situation, the Governments of Belgium and Sweden have defended today. his arrival at the Council of European Justice and Home Affairs Ministers held today in Luxembourg. "The terrorist who committed the attack had requested asylum in four different European countries and all four times he had been rejected because he did not meet the conditions," denounced the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor. "He was therefore not a refugee" but this situation is "unacceptable." "He had arrived in Italy in 2011, so he had been roaming around European territory for twelve years" in an irregular situation, added the Belgian Minister of Justice, Annelies Verlinden.
The individual accused of carrying out the attack, who was killed early Tuesday by police in a cafe in Brussels, has been identified by the Belgian press as Abdesalem Lassoued, a 45-year-old man of Tunisian nationality. According to the Italian press, Lassoued arrived on the island of Lampedusa during the Arab Spring in 2011. In June of that same year, he requested asylum in Norway - a country that is not part of the EU but is in the Schengen zone of free movement of people - but his request was rejected and the man was returned to Italy, according to the authorities of the Nordic country.
His footsteps reappeared, however, in another country in northern Europe. The Swedish Immigration Agency has confirmed that the suspect had lived in this country between 2012 and 2014. During this period of time, he spent time in prison for crimes that have not come to light before, in application of the Dublin regulation, be returned to the EU country through which he had entered community territory, Italy. Between 2014 and 2017, he lived in Turin, then in the surroundings of Rome and finally in Bologna, where the Italian anti-terrorist services identified him as an extremist, according to the newspaper Il Corriere de la Sera, the AP agency reports. Italy tried to deport him to Tunisia but the efforts were put on hold when the man requested international protection; Italian authorities lost track of him before being able to review his case in 2017.
The Belgian Government has confirmed that Lassoued requested asylum in the country in 2019 and saw his asylum application rejected in October 2020. The individual was suspected of participating in human trafficking networks, residing illegally in Belgium and representing a risk for security, so in 2021 he was ordered to leave the country. But Lassoued refused to stay in a shelter and disappeared from the radar before the measure could be implemented. This week - the day after shooting dead two Swedish citizens who had traveled to Brussels to attend a football match, victims whom he was suspected of deliberately targeting because of their nationality - he was due to appear in court in a case of assault in an asylum center. Given the speed with which the Belgian police found his home on Monday night and located the man in that same neighborhood, the opposition questions whether the federal government could not do anything to expel the man.
The case, the Justice Ministers of Belgium and Sweden stressed today, demonstrates the need to quickly approve the new European Migration Pact, which contains specific measures to expedite the return to their countries of origin of asylum seekers whose requests have been rejected. . The Council of the EU, the institution where the governments of the Twenty-seven sit, recently reached a common position on the latest pending regulation and the proposals must now be negotiated with the European Parliament, where they will encounter reluctance to tighten the policy migration proposed by the new European pact. "We have a proposal on the table to make it mandatory for member states to expel people who pose a threat to security. That is the first thing, making it mandatory to act effectively," De Moor highlighted.
Verlinden, the Belgian Minister of the Interior, has advocated being much tougher than now from a political point of view with countries that do not collaborate. "If we find that some North African countries do not readmit their nationals, we have a problem, we cannot act as if it did not happen," she emphasized. "We must give a very strong message as the EU and put pressure on all fronts to obtain better results," agreed the Swedish Minister of Justice, who has even advocated using development aid as a pressure measure.
"The external dimension of immigration does not consist of imposing returns [of irregular immigrants] without cooperation" from the countries of origin, the acting Minister of the Interior and current president of the Council of European Ministers of the field disagreed in statements to the press. , Fernando Grande-Marlaska. "The external dimension is transversal cooperation, at all times, with the countries of origin and transit. We have to work together, Europe and Africa, to promote development, prevent irregular departures, fight against mafias and save lives but also give them a life option in their countries," defended Grande-Marlaska, who has asked for flexibility from all European institutions to move forward with the European Migration Pact and "have a definitive regulatory framework that allows us to face the migration challenge with greater guarantees." .
