EU Says Europe ‘Ideal Refuge’ for Migrants Fleeing ‘Poverty, Climate Change’

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Virginia Hale

Europe will be an “ideal refuge for asylum seekers and migrants” in a world where “climate change and global poverty” will drive increasing numbers of poor people to seek better lives elsewhere, according to an EU policy briefing.

The “unprecedented arrival of refugees and irregular migrants” seen during the crisis of 2015 exposed a need for Brussels to reform the bloc’s policies on “asylum, external borders and migration”, according to the EU Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS).

In a ‘policy podcast’ titled “Delivering For Citizens: The Migration Issue”, the EPRS said Brussels has set out on “a process of reform aimed at rebuilding … [these] policies based on four pillars”, which include “addressing the root causes” of illegal — referred to as ‘irregular’ — migration and “dismantling smuggling and trafficking networks”.

Imposing a “strong” asylum policy on countries across the whole bloc was another of the so-called pillars, along with “saving lives” and “providing more legal pathways for asylum seekers and more efficient legal channels for regular migrants”.

Despite mention of “securing the external borders” and “improving returns” of illegal migrants, it is clear from the EPRS podcast and its related “complete briefing” on EU migration policy that Brussels has no intention of stemming massive migrant flows from the third world.

“Europe, due to its geographic position and its reputation as an example of stability, generosity and openness against a background of growing international and internal conflicts, climate change and global poverty, is likely to continue to represent an ideal refuge for asylum-seekers and migrants,” both the report and the podcast assert.

That Brussels is preparing for increased migration from the Global South is “reflected in the growing amounts, flexibility and diversity of EU funding for migration and asylum policies inside as well as outside the current and future EU budget,” they add.

“Migration is a macro-critical policy issue on a global scale” which requires a “global solution” involving measures to “counterbalance the decline or stagnation in population growth” in first world countries, according to the EU document.

Contrary to Brussels’ public claims to be working to tackle mass migration, and its attacking as a “conspiracy theory” a recent Hungarian campaign warning Eurocrats seek to increase migrant flows to the bloc, the policy report proclaims there is an “urgent need to replace irregular migratory flows, which have caused so much suffering and extreme human rights violations, with legal channels for migration”.

“As European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in his State of the Union speech in 2017, ‘Irregular migration will only stop if there is a real alternative to perilous journeys,’” it notes.

With polls showing up to two thirds of sub-Saharan Africa’s 1.1 billion population — which is projected to more than double to 2. 5 billion by 2050 — want to move to EU nations or the U.S., it is unclear how Juncker and others in Brussels could believe illegal immigration could be stopped by introducing “legal pathways” unless these were unlimited in number, essentially amounting to a policy of completely open borders.

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