Von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech risks making border pushbacks ‘normal’ EU migration policy

by · EUobserver

Ursula von der Leyen in Greece in early 2020 – when she declared the country as a ‘shield’ for the rest of Europe after a large number of people attempted to enter from Turkey (Photo: European Union)

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By Nikolaj Nielsen,
Brussels
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European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at her State of the Union address on Wednesday (16 September) will reportedly announce new migrant-busting plans — possibly even allowing EU states to suspend asylum whenever a large number of people arrive at a border.

If true, it would likely be a further crack in efforts to enforce the ban on pushbacks, the illegal practice whereby people are forced to return to a country where they face any number of dangers.

“I think what we’re seeing is quite concerted efforts by the states to target that principle, to erode it, to undermine it, and in some cases to destroy it,” says Catherine Woollard, an adjunct professor in law at the Brussels School of Governance.

Despite the drop in applications and arrivals, the EU remains transfixed on curbing what it believes is an existential crisis that could possibly unravel the border-free Schengen zone and plummet the union into oblivion.

With the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) winning the regional election in Saxony-Anhalt, the far-right eyeing the French presidency next year and Italy’s Georgi Meloni also facing a general election in 2027, the politics surrounding migration has once again tossed a spanner into the law-making machinery of the European Union.

The European Commission has shown itself time and again willing to comply to national capital demands even though the drop in applications and arrivals is primarily due to millions of Afghans being sent back to their country from places like Iran and Pakistan. Syria, historically a driver of asylum, is also now more stable after the fall of the murderous Assad regime.

Yet in Greece, prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for new emergency measures to temporarily suspend asylum applications in August.

And the European People’s Party, the centre-right bloc to which Mitsotakis belongs, is competing with the far-right with proposals to abolish subsidiary protection, a form of international protection granted to people who don’t qualify as refugees.

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Ursula von der Leyen in Greece in early 2020 - when she declared the country as a 'shield' for the rest of Europe after a large number of people attempted to enter from Turkey (Photo: European Union)

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Author Bio

Nikolaj Nielsen joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.

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