Migration taz
Common European Asylum System: The reform has failed
A new EU asylum system has been in place for around four months. An initial assessment reveals a weak EU in which everyone blocks each other. more...
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According to current statistics, the German authorities have only deported two asylum seekers each to Italy and Greece in the last six months. All other deportation attempts were blocked by the Greek and Italian authorities. Is this good news or bad news?
Don't get it wrong, every failed deportation is good, especially to Greece, where the authorities deliberately make the conditions for refugees as hostile to life as possible. It was only last year that German courts allowed people to be deported there again - and only by resorting to absurd legal contortions.
The Federal Administrative Court seriously argued that refugees could escape the widespread misery and homelessness in Greece by working in the “shadow economy”. So moonlighting as a way out. Every refugee who is spared this is a reason to be happy.
The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.
And yet a strange feeling remains. It has been less than four months since the major reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) came into force. It should ensure that the Dublin system works again. This stipulates that refugees go through their asylum procedure where they first set foot on EU soil, usually in Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Greece.
The fact that there have been practically no deportations from Germany to Greece and Italy since then shows that the reform has failed. And that is an expression of the weakness of an EU in which we can agree on paper, but in practice everyone blocks each other.
In the case of deportations, the outcome may be positive. But a humane and fair refugee policy cannot be achieved with such an EU. In order to replace the unfair Dublin system, cooperation between European states and a fair distribution mechanism would be needed to provide everyone with the best possible care. That seems more distant today than ever.