Southern Europe: Turning “Reception” into “Detention”

Abstract

The countries of Southern Europe—with the exception of Portugal—have been the “frontline” European Union (EU) countries most directly impacted by recent refugee and migration movements. This impact has been made even more challenging by the so-called Dublin Regulation, which requires that people seeking asylum apply in the first country of arrival and has resulted in the widespread “transfer” of people back to these countries. As the EU ramped up its control efforts in targeted geographic areas, migration routes changed considerably, which meant that these countries experienced the “crisis” in different ways at different periods of time. Thus, for instance, while the 2016 EU-Turkey deal failed to deter refugee flows out of Syria and the Near East, it did result in many people opting to journey by way of the “Central European” route. Stepped up border controls and the construction of border fences in the Balkan countries subsequently spurred increasing numbers of people to transit countries of North Africa, including importantly Libya, as part of the “Central Mediterranean” route leading through Italy and Malta. More recently, many migrants and asylum seekers have begun using the “Western Mediterranean” route, leading to Spain. As migration routes changed, so did the politics and discourse of each of these countries. Malta and Italy, for instance, have sought to block entrance to their ports by ships carrying migrants, and Italy passed draconian laws criminalizing people seeking to aid migrants and refugees stranded at sea. The two countries have also assisted Libyan maritime forces in intercepting people at sea, many of whom end up languishing in abysmal detention centers in Libya that have been financed with European money. Of all the countries in the region, Italy has arguably been the most vocal in its xenophobic rhetoric, with flagrant anti-migrant sentiment continuing to dominate politics even though the numbers of arrivals have dropped considerably. For its part, Portugal has been one of Europe’s main outliers during this period, encouraging the arrival of refugees and adopting ambitious resettlement schemes—even as it has ramped up the systematic detention of asylum seekers lodging applications at its borders. This region also witnessed establishment of a new kind of EU-supported facilities, so called hotspots. Hotspots are initial reception centres which process new comers and benefit from the EU funding and operational assistances (with both Frontex and EASO being present there). These facilities blur the distinction between reception and detention because some of the measures implemented there are akin to detention. Currently, hotspots operate in Italy and Greece, while Spain has reportedly refused such structures.