Some 330,000 people arrived irregularly in 2022, up 64 %, according to Frontex. European ministers must meet in Stockholm to propose measures, before the exceptional European Council of February 9 and 10.
by Philippe Jacqué (Brussels, European Bureau)
After the Pandemic of Covid-19, the question of migration has become a priority in Europe. In 2022, Frontex, the European agency in charge of borders, recorded an increase of 64 % over one year in the number of irregular admissions. Some 330,000 people arrived by the Mediterranean or the Balkans. And the old continent recorded 914,000 asylum seekers – most of the applicants arriving through legal paths -, including more than 150,000 in France.
These arrivals – still far from the 2015 records, with nearly two million irregular border crossings, and 2016 (500,000) – nevertheless caused a clogging of the capacity of reception of many countries, including Austria , Belgium, the Netherlands or France. Like the other States of the European Union (EU), they had taken advantage of the drop in entries in previous years to close many reception centers and found themselves in front of the arrival of both new asylum seekers And Ukrainians who benefit from temporary protection. The latter were approximately nine million, in 2022, to have crossed the border of an EU country.
from Amsterdam to Vienna via Brussels, Rome or Stockholm, the political pressure on the subject of migration is gradually raised in 2022. until you soon invite itself to the table of European heads of state, during of an exceptional European Council, on February 9 and 10. Before that, the interior ministers of the twenty-seven had to meet in Stockholm, Thursday, January 26, for an informal meeting.
On the menu of discussions, the question of the return of foreigners dismissed from their asylum or regularization request. A subject that occupies France, and Europe, for ten years. While in 2020 29 % of foreigners in an irregular situation returned to their country of origin, this percentage fell to 24 % in 2022, according to Eurostat data. “Last year, for 300,000 return decisions notified in Europe, 70,000 people returned to their country, details Ylva Johansson, the commissioner in charge of internal affairs. We know that we can do better.”
In 2020, the commission had made a more muscular return policy one of the pillars of its asylum and migration pact – a set of ten regulations, still under negotiation. The question of return has even become an obsession with Brussels, assures Marta Gionco, of the NGO Picum network (platform for international cooperation for undocumented migrants). “In this pact, the term” return “appears a hundred times, while the term” law “only appears fourteen times …”, she says.
You have 47.3% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.