UN Refugee Agency, civil society groups and left-wing MEPs fear any proposal to suspend the right of asylum could enable illegal pushbacks, potentially exposing migrants to violence, torture or death.
But the prospect is already setting off alarm bells among some left-wing politicians and those on the front lines of Europe’s asylum system, who fear that suspending a fundamental right of the EU would be both unprecedented and dangerous.
Earlier this month, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed in her State of the Union speech to introduce an emergency framework that could pave the way for the suspension of the right to asylum, a controversial measure that some capitals have already endorsed.
The proposed framework is a response to the Ceuta crisis, following the mass entry of 82,000 irregular migrants from Morocco in late July, with several thousand of them who are still in the Spanish exclave, waiting for their applications to be assessed.
A suspension of the right to seek asylum would be unprecedented at EU level, marking a radical departure from existing migration policy and prompting a major backlash.
Under current rules, any foreign national present in an EU country is entitled to apply for asylum, regardless of how they entered the bloc, with each claim assessed on an individual basis.
Changing the asylum principle would result in allowing “collective pushbacks”, with migrant people sent back outside the EU, irrespective of their personal situation.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), this practice would breach the principle of non-refoulement and migrant’s fundamental rights, as people could be returned to a place where they would face torture, inhuman treatment and threats to their life or freedom.
“Even at times of migratory pressure, States must ensure that people seeking asylum have access to asylum procedures and cannot deviate from this important principle of international law,” UNHCR told Euronews in a statement.
Von der Leyen said the emergency framework would only be triggered “under a strictly defined set of criteria” and “allow for time-limited and strictly defined flexibility in standard procedures.”
A Commission official told Euronews there is no clear timeline for presenting the proposal, and details remain unclear. The topic is likely to be discussed on Saturday at a Migration Conference in Munich, which features ministers and representatives from 18 European countries, the official said.
Meanwhile,civil society groups and MEPs are already pushing back against any mechanism that would allow governments to sidestep existing asylum safeguards.
“This would mean dismantling another piece of EU values,” Italian Socialist MEP Cecilia Strada, a prominent voice on migration issues, told Euronews. She argued that “exceptional circumstances” are simply an excuse to justify pushbacks, which are illegal under EU law.
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