Refugee Conundrum and Viable Solutions

Catherine Woollard spoke for OrionTalks about the "Refugee Conundrum and Viable Solutions" and discussed policies around the refugee crisis in the world. Ms. Woollard is the Secretary-General of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).

The transcript of the podcast:

Suat Cubukcu: When you became the director of ECRE in 2016, the EU has been going through one of the worst refugee crises in its history, and the crisis continues dramatically. Could you introduce ECRE and its mission, especially regarding the current crisis? 

Catherine Woollard: ECRE is an alliance of NGOs that works to defend the rights of displaced people in Europe and the right to asylum for those who come to Europe seeking protection, but also in Europe's foreign policy. It serves as a vehicle for collective action, so we have more than 100 members in 40 European countries. The main areas of our activity are litigation and legal support, so we support asylum lawyers dealing with individual cases, and we also run strategic litigation at the European courts and use UN mechanisms. 

Our second area of activity is advocacy, lobbying to change policies and to have policies implemented in some cases. The third area is communication, where we're trying to put out, let's say, more realistic and less myth-based information on what's actually happening on this issue. So, you can imagine, we have a lot of priorities right now: we've been working in the last six months on Europe's response to the situation in Afghanistan, for instance, but also the events at the borders with Belarus, as well as the ongoing efforts to defend the right to asylum in Europe.

Suat Cubukcu: The rise of refugee populations in Europe is often blamed for the increasing popularity of far-right political parties. At the same time, countries like Turkey and Belarus with authoritarian leaders have instrumentalized, even weaponized, their immigration policies to impose their policies and interests on the European Union. So, in a sense, the flow of refugees seems to play into the hands of extremists. What do you think the EU should do to address this issue and protect the rights of refugees?

Catherine Woollard: We have to remember that, unfortunately, the far-Right has always been part of the European political landscape.Even in post-war Germany, there were extreme right political parties. In most European countries, their voting share is actually stable or declining, despite the large number of people arriving. So, sometimes this is used as a justification for restrictive policies, and those parties, unfortunately, always remain part of our political systems. 

The numbers of people arriving in Europe are manageable for Europe, and indeed most of those arriving need protection, which hasn't always been the case when we look at the arrivals of people in Europe. At the same time, Europe also needs new populations, so it's not the worst context for managing this issue. 

There are things that make it a particularly tense and challenging issue, though. One is the way in which people arrive, there's something that is particularly challenging when people arrive by sea. Even historically, we see that it stimulates a sense of fear and what we might call an “invasion psychosis” particularly due to historical reasons in Europe. I think that creates difficulty, even if the numbers are manageable. The manner of arrival can provoke problems. I think another problem we've seen is the response of mainstream political parties, which, unfortunately, have absorbed a lot of the rhetoric and indeed some of the myths that are put forward by the extremists.

We would also say there is a very unrealistic strategy, of trying to prevent all arrivals of people in Europe to seek protection. Something that actually creates more problems, is the way that this issue constantly becomes a political crisis, something that actually plays into the hands of authoritarian and repressive leaders elsewhere; they know that they can stimulate a crisis in Europe and that they can use this issue to extract concessions from Europe. And so we would argue that the way to deal with all of that is actually to have functioning asylum systems in Europe. Actually, it's a very small percentage of those who are displaced globally, who actually arrive in Europe seeking protection.

Europe, given its demographic crises and given its wealth, is able to manage. So, putting in place functioning asylum systems; finding safe and legal routes for people to arrive at protection, so that they don't need to take the dangerous journeys that lead to trauma for them but that also stimulate this ongoing sense of panic within Europe, with a massive increase, for instance, of resettlement places, of humanitarian corridors and student scholarships, all the alternatives to people having to rely on smugglers and cross borders in an irregular way. And, as well as other flanking measures such as attempting to prevent displacement, in the first place, or at least not causing it. So we see that there isn't anything particularly challenging about this political moment; it's about having strategies that are realistic in order to confront what is a manageable situation – and without resorting to the kind of panic that allows exploitation by extremist forces in Europe and by repressive leaders outside Europe.

Suat Cubukcu: The European Union has been outsourcing the refugee problem to third countries to keep migrants out of Europe by making deals and providing funding to these countries? Do you consider the strategy of outsourcing as a viable solution?

Catherine Woollard: No, it occasionally works in the short term but outsourcing cannot work in the long term for a whole variety of reasons. The first is that other countries actually host far more refugees than Europe does. Of the current record numbers of people who are displaced globally, around 90% of them are in regions other than Europe so countries that are already doing so much more than European countries to host refugees are unwilling and uninterested and, indeed, unable to take on a greater share of responsibilities.  

There's also a lack of political will in many countries to assist Europe. For instance, I frequently travel in Africa and in many African countries people, policymakers, and ordinary populations consider that the people in Europe have gone completely crazy on this issue. They deal with far greater numbers of displaced people and don't understand why there is this sense of panic in Europe. So, they don't want to help Europe often.  I would say, above all, that the strategy of outsourcing allows for the kind of manipulation that we were just discussing. It creates a dependency on countries, and on regimes indeed, that may be unreliable and, in some cases, repressive and, in some cases, those regimes are themselves causes of displacement. So, you actually risk creating the situation where dictators can manipulate and instrumentalize people to extract concessions from Europe and can seek other benefits that keep them in power. It may be counterproductive in that they may also, at the same time, be generating displacement by repression of their own people, through undermining security and other ways. 

What we see quite often is unreliability whereby particular leaders will take money from Europe with one hand and from smugglers with the other hand, and continue to allow people to move,  while claiming that they are attempting to prevent people moving, which Europe is asking them to do. 

I would just add that that kind of approach very much distorts development policy but also security policy. Those external policies and foreign policies have their own objectives –  if they're allowed to prioritize those objectives, be they creating livelihoods, economic development for people in third countries, or be they promoting security in the interest of people in those countries – that actually goes some way towards preventing displacement and giving people reasons to stay, tackling potential repression and persecution. So, if all of those policies in terms of diplomatic resources and also financial resources are diverted into this futile attempt to prevent movement, it creates quite a counterproductive situation.

Suat Cubukcu: This is a multi-dimensional issue, and you talk about dealing with the root causes of the issue. We also see some problems at the EU borders. For example, according to a fact-finding investigation by the European Parliament, the European Union has failed to protect the rights of people at EU borders countries, like Greece. In another report by the Human Rights Watch, Frontex has failed to take necessary action to stop the illicit practice of pushbacks and forcing asylum seekers and refugees to return to the border countries they are coming from?  What does ECRE do to prevent such illicit push-back incidents and What can civil society do to address such illegal practices against the international norms. 

Catherine Woollard: We're highly concerned about this situation of flagrant violations at the borders and impunity when States engage inaction which is illegal under both EU and international law. Our response as civil society is basically in three areas. 

Firstly documentation of what's going on: gathering of evidence, witnessing what's happening at the borders. Secondly, litigation, with efforts to get justice for the people who've been affected, but also to deter states from engaging in those actions, because there will be consequences in the form of legal procedures. Thirdly, lobbying and advocacy work in order to try to encourage compliance with the legal obligations that exist in this area. As we were discussing before, one of our alternatives to the situation of attempting to prevent arrivals regardless of the cost and the consequences is to have asylum functioning in Europe  - to have asylum systems functioning as they should be. So, we identify implementation gaps that exist, and one of the main implementation gaps is the question of access, access to territory, access to asylum procedures, and that's what's happening at the borders, denial of access.

I would add as a small additional point that there are organizations that are taking direct action. So, in a situation where states are refusing to meet their own obligations, there are civil society organizations –  but also individual volunteers, professionals who step in and do what states should be doing so.  We see that, for instance, in terms of search and rescue, where at one point, there were 12 ships run by different NGOs operating in the Mediterranean region, because the states have been refusing to rescue people and, we also have seen situations where people are transported across borders by volunteers. Those are not things that we're directly involved in, but they are actions being taken in this context. One of the concerns we have currently is that humanitarian action is being restricted, and in some cases, even criminalized in Europe. So, that kind of response to the state's lack of action may become increasingly difficult with people being put on trial, for instance for rescuing people who would otherwise be drowned.

Suat Cubukcu: The United States seems to be relatively isolated from the ongoing refugee crisis affecting Europe. What do you think the United States should do to help Europe address the ongoing immigration crisis?

Catherine Woollard: I would say it's probably not direct support. But, first, displacement is a global challenge, so tackling forced displacement requires states to work together collectively, and there are a number of different ways they can do that. Firstly, a fair sharing of hosting of refugees, so the US has traditionally been a country that accepts quite a large number of refugees, of course, under the previous government that was something that ceased. So, moving towards and working together to have some sort of fair division, which is not provided for unfortunately in the Refugee Convention of 1951 (that's one of the great weaknesses of the Convention). But, states need to voluntarily work together to divide responsibility.  And, secondly, I think, states should offer safe routes to protection so that people aren't forced to take these dangerous traumatic and politically problematic journeys that we've discussed. The US has also traditionally played a strong role and could again engage in what needs to be, we would argue, a massive expansion of safe routes to reach protection and given the numbers of those who are displaced and but then I think it also comes to this question of what is, as you said, before what sometimes called the root causes and that the efforts to prevent displacement in the first place. 

According to UNHCR and other sources, there are currently record numbers of refugees of people who have been forcibly displaced. There are multiple things that can be done to try to prevent displacement through the use of foreign policies in a constructive way, changing their objectives. But, we would also underline the need not to cause displacement in the first place. To build into foreign policy a better assessment of things like the risks attached to military intervention and the arms trade, and the extent to which they contribute to displacement. Sometimes those things are not connected with the arrival of refugees, but of course, behind those movements, there are kinds of causes, ranging from external support for repressive regimes to distribution of weapons, andin some cases, intervention, so I think all of those elements contribute. 

As a final point, I think, which relates to some of the other issues we've discussed, there's also the question of modeling behavior. For Europe, as for the US, one of the most important things that both can do is to respect international law and their own national obligations when it comes to the rights of displaced people. If they cease to do so, the countries that actually host the vast majority of displaced people will also start to reject the idea of offering protection.  So, there's also a form of what we might call “enlightened self-interest” that would lead the big countries and the richer countries to respect legal obligations in this area and to host a fair share of people, even when that's politically controversial sometimes. Because the alternative to doing that is probably that – ultimately – more people will arrive seeking protection there because other countries will follow their lead in closing protection space.

Suat Cubukcu: Thank you, Catherine, for taking your time and providing these insightful comments.  I believe our audience will appreciate listening to the conversation. Happy Holidays!