“It’s really important to return rejected asylum seekers,” stressed Swedish Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, who had invited the EU interior ministers to Stockholm. However, deportation often fails due to resistance from the countries of origin, she stressed.
A minority government has been in power in Sweden since October, which is dependent on the votes of the far-right Sweden Democrats and wants to massively restrict immigration. In order to increase the pressure on the countries of origin of rejected asylum seekers, Sweden wants to make it more difficult to issue visas to citizens of such countries.
While France and Italy signaled approval, Faeser was “reluctant” to the Swedish proposal. According to the SPD politician, the federal government is instead focusing on incentives for the countries of origin. She wants to “conclude migration agreements with North African countries in particular, which on the one hand enable legal routes to Germany, but on the other hand include a functioning repatriation,” said the SPD politician.
Since 2020, the EU has been able to use visas as a means of exerting pressure on countries of origin. So far, however, it has only done so in the case of the West African country of Gambia. EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson said that she now wants to suggest that member states use this tool more often. Sweden and Denmark also want to reduce development aid.
“Many member countries are under massive pressure,” emphasized Johansson in Stockholm. She referred to the number of irregular arrivals in the EU, which rose last year to its highest level since 2016. The border protection agency Frontex counted around 330,000 arrivals, 64 percent more than in 2021.
The number of asylum applications in the EU doubled to more than 920,000 in the same period. This suggests that there is either a high number of unreported irregular border crossings or that immigrants are submitting applications in several countries.
In Stockholm, the Austrian Minister of the Interior, Gerhard Karner, demanded that the EU “consistently step on the asylum brakes.” Austria sees itself overburdened by migration via the Balkan route and is demanding two billion euros from the EU to expand the border facilities between Bulgaria and Turkey.
“There is no money for this in the EU budget,” emphasized Interior Commissioner Johansson in Brussels. “If we spend money on walls or fences, we don’t have funds for other things.” After the meeting, however, she indicated that the member countries could decide on other priorities. Last year, up to 13 of the 27 EU countries voted for community funds for fences.
Since the refugee crisis of 2015, the EU has failed to agree on a new asylum pact. The issue of controversy will next concern the heads of state and government at a special summit in Brussels on February 9th and 10th.
