The Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, near the Syrian border.

Let’s not shut our eyes on refugees

Even though the European Union is gradually building a common and coherent policy on granting asylum, Europe is still extremely difficult for refugees to access. The Syrian drama presents the chance to be more welcoming, argues Dagens Nyheter.

Published on 1 August 2013 at 16:12
The Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, near the Syrian border.

The flood of refugees sweeping across Sweden is less significant than what the Office for Migration had forecast. Nearly 45,000 people from around the world have requested asylum in Sweden this year – 9,000 fewer than expected. Even the assumptions for next year have been cut back by 3,000 to 48,000.

This decrease in the number of refugees would have been good news if it was the result of a more peaceful, more democratic world. However, the origin of these new statistics seems rather to reflect rather the EU’s tightening of controls at its borders. Between Greece and Turkey, above all.

The situation of the Syrian refugees seems particularly disastrous. Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has called it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since the Rwandan genocide. At the moment, almost 1.8 million Syrian refugees are living in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. The Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, which opened its doors at the beginning of July of last year, today counts more than 144,000 residents, making it the fourth-largest city in the country.

Good intentions, little action

The refugees are often greeted with generosity and compassion. The longer the conflict lasts, though, the greater will be the pressure on the countries neighbouring Syria. In an interview with British newspaper The Guardian, Guterres states that the massive influx of refugees in the region risks not only a humanitarian crisis, but also poses a threat to global peace and security.

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And what is Europe doing? At the moment, far too little. But it’s not for a lack of good intentions.

All EU member countries are committed to observing the Geneva Convention, which protects individuals fleeing from war and persecution. In June, the European Parliament adopted a slate of measures to provide for a common asylum system, which should enter into force in autumn 2015. We may hope that it would lead, ultimately, to an improvement in how refugees are received, particularly in terms of legal certainty.

The EU even has a common regulatory framework for managing large-scale humanitarian crises. Thus, following the war in the former Yugoslavia in 2001, it reached an agreement on legislation to grant temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons.

Simplifying entry

The snag is that refugees who wish to seek asylum have to do so within European borders, but those who admit they intend to seek asylum are not granted entry. In the early 2000s, there were still some openings. But, while several European countries allowed claimants to initiate asylum procedures from their respective embassies, these routes are now closed, and refugees have been forced to enter the EU illegally. Some do manage to cross the border, but they are relatively few. So far, the EU has welcomed nearly 43,000 refugees from Syria. Tuesday, in the pages of the Dagens Nyheter, the European Commissioner [for Internal Affairs] Cecilia Malmström expressed her concern at the unwillingness of member states to welcome more refugees. “Not a lot of people raised their hands,” she explained, when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees appealed to EU member countries a few weeks ago to take in 12,000 refugees from camps in countries neighbouring Syria.

It is high time for European leaders to review their way of thinking. If humanitarian reasons do not suffice, perhaps the risk of rising tensions in the Middle East can firm up their commitment. Legal entry into the EU should be simplified, for example, by allowing the embassies to issue humanitarian visas, to let refugees explain the reasons for their asylum request.

The EU should collectively manage its responsibility towards the Syrian refugees. If not today, at a time where nearly two million people from a country close to Europe have fled their homes, then when?

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