[Kaiserschmarrn]

European leaders in talks on creating asylum center outside EU

COPENHAGEN/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Several EU countries are discussing setting up a camp for rejected asylum seekers in a country on the continent but outside the European Union, two national leaders said on Tuesday.



Germany, the Netherlands and Austria were among those involved in the discussions, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told local media, adding he hoped a pilot project could pave the way for an improved European asylum system. “I’m optimistic. Based on my discussions with other European leaders - and the dialogue that is going on at official level - it is my expectation that we will be able to take the first step this year,” he said separately in a speech marking Denmark’s Constitution Day.

Speaking in Brussels, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz confirmed the plans, saying talks had already reached an advanced stage. “We suggested a long time ago that it would make sense to offer protection outside of the European Union, where (migrants) get protection where it is necessary but do not have the opportunity to pick the best system in Europe,” Kurz said.

Both Rasmussen and Kurz said talks were being held directly between European governments and not within the EU framework. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he was not immediately opposed to such an initiative. “I believe the defense against illegal immigration is a European as well as national matter. It is not up to me to be against it,” he told a joint press conference with Kurz, ahead of Austria taking over the rotating EU presidency.

Denmark’s intake of asylum seekers has dropped to just over 1,000 in the first four months of this year, from a peak of more than 21,000 in 2015. Compared with its neighbors Sweden and Germany, Denmark has generally granted fewer people asylum as a proportion of its population. Rasmussen declined to comment on which countries could be hosting such a camp, though he said it would be in a place that was “not particularly attractive” for traffickers.

Would go a long way in making these countries unattractive for illegal/economic migrants.

[layman]

This is the thing. The eu iinstitutions have been looking and migrant control measures more than anyone since this started.

It is unfair to blame the eu technocracy itself for this mess like a lot of people do. National politicians, specifically Merkel, were the ones welcoming. Not the eu.

Any asylum seekers who don’t follow the proper process should be assumed to be lying. All should be sent to external Center’s. Finally, those Center’s should be well funded and decent.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

This was not initiated by an EU institution but four EU member states.

I think one can blame the EU at a conceptual level when there are regulations such as Dublin but effective measures to defend external borders are missing, despite the fact that it was ultimately the member states which decided to regulate migration in this way at an EU level.

[Independent_Srpska]

Oh, I wonder where this center would be located?
And why create only an asylum center??! Why not create a whole state?!
Hey, wait, but NATO already created artificial states in Europe suitable for this purpose

[ThirdTerm]

Denmark’s intake of asylum seekers has dropped to just over 1,000 in the first four months of this year, from a peak of more than 21,000 in 2015. Compared with its neighbors Sweden and Germany, Denmark has generally granted fewer people asylum as a proportion of its population. Rasmussen declined to comment on which countries could be hosting such a camp, though he said it would be in a place that was “not particularly attractive” for traffickers.

I think Ukraine is a good candidate, which is a very unattractive place for refugees to be sent to. Ukraine is likely to cooperate if the EU askes the country to set up a refugee camp in exchange for some rewards. The Manus refugee processing centre in Papua New Guinea detained over 600 refugees for Australia until it was closed down in 2017 because the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees cited the centre as an "indictment of a policy meant to avoid Australia's international obligations."

[One Degree]

Cyprus?

[Albert]

I did read something similar in the time around the migration crisis blew over in Europe at new years. The idea was to relocate migrants to Libya. The way it was planned to establish these centres was by military means. It was reasoned that there is already military European presence in Lybia so it will be easier to accomplish this logistically. The plan was later on scraped for some reason, perhaps it was deemed too radical.

[fokker]

Or Serbia...

[Beren]

Cyprus?

Cyprus is a member of the EU. I'd rather bet Albania and/or Kosovo. Poor, Sunni Muslim mostly, aspiring to EU-membership and close to both Italy and Greece. I wonder if FYROM joins.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Support from Belgium.

Belgian minister: Europe needs Australian approach to migration

‘Those who come to Europe should lose their right to asylum,’ says Theo Francken.

Belgium’s right-wing immigration minister, Theo Francken, has suggested Europe should follow Australia’s example and only accept asylum claims via the United Nations.

“Aren’t there any safe ports in North Africa? Those who come to Europe should lose their right to asylum,” Francken, who leads the right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), said in an interview with Flemish daily Nieuwsblad published Saturday.

Europe, he added, should only accept refugees who ask for asylum via U.N. camps in conflict zones and send back those who arrive on its shores by boat.

“This illegal migration must stop,” Francken told the Flemish daily. “Aside from 15 percent who support open borders, the support of a majority of the population is melting that snow in the sun. These are people who aren’t at all racist, but who think rationally.”

Francken — who consistently polls as the most popular politician in Flanders — was one of few European ministers to express support earlier this week for Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s decision to close the country’s ports to a vessel carrying more than 600 migrants. “If nobody wants to take the migrants, we will have to set up a refugee camp in North Africa,” he told Italian daily Il Giornale.

The Flemish right-wing politician is not alone in calling for a tough response to migration in Europe. Austria’s conservative leader Sebastian Kurz has called for an “axis of the willing against illegal migration” between Italy, Germany and his own country, and pledged to make fighting illegal immigration a top priority for Vienna’s presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2018.