/ world today news/ Iliana Yotova – MEP from BSP/PES, in an interview for the show “Saturday 150” on BNR
Presenter: The European Union has demanded new powers to manage refugees and distribute them among member states. Currently, refugee status is granted by decision of national governments. In both options proposed by the European Commission, mandatory quotas for the resettlement of refugees are foreseen. The countries in the European Union are also asked to allow centralized control for the reception of refugees and their distribution according to quotas on a permanent basis, and this should be done by changing the so-called “Dublin Regulation”. Currently, it only places responsibility for refugees on the countries with the European Union’s external borders, where migrants first arrive. Brussels wants the legislative reform to take place before the summer. Is this possible and how will the other requested changes happen – we put these questions to MEP Iliana Yotova, who is working on the topic. Hello, Mrs. Yotova.
Iliana Yotova: Good day to you and the listeners of the Horizon program. It could be done by the summer. To be fair, it is not only a question of changing the “Dublin Agreement”, which really hit certain countries on the external border of the European Union very hard in terms of the refugee wave. It is a whole legislative package, which also includes the new border management, border and coast guard. This is also the way in which the documents will be issued for the people who will reside – the people from third countries, refugees or migrants – in the territory of the European Union. As well as a very important regulation that will say which of the countries that are the source of migration can enter the list of so-called “safe countries”. For now – I’ll just open a bracket – it’s about Turks, it’s about the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania. So all these documents must be seen in their interrelationships, because one document complements another. The idea is really for a large-scale, new migration policy, since the crisis, unfortunately, as you can see, even after the signed agreement with Turkey, is deepening and new problems, unknown before, seem to be emerging.
Presenter: And how do you think national governments will react to the idea of the European Commission to centralize the management of refugee flows?
Iliana Yotova: I am sure that there will be many governments against it, because whatever we talk about, like “The main principle of the European Union – solidarity”, you see that this principle has not worked for at least two years now, because mainly the refugee wave was taken over by countries like Greece, like Italy, like Malta, partly also our country. I.e. these are the countries to which refugees and migrants have the easiest access. And it seems that Schengen Europe is starting to make more and more policies that lead to its closure and the transformation of the border countries into buffer zones. This is also the policy in the proposed new strategy for border protection and the coast guard. This document is currently under discussion in the European Parliament. Personally, I am a proponent, together with my colleagues, of course, of an amendment that would concern security not only for Schengen Europe, but for all external borders of the European Union, including Bulgaria. It will be a difficult battle for us, because it seems that national selfishness prevails, if I have to answer your question with one definition.
Presenter: And now let’s turn to the current agreement between the European Union and Turkey, which is already being implemented to some extent. In your opinion, is Turkey ready to absorb the refugee flow and do you think it will strictly implement the agreement?
Iliana Yotova: You know that this agreement – there were two stages in its development before the final version was signed. Personally, I and my colleagues from the Group of Socialists and Democrats believe that this agreement cannot under any circumstances be a benchmark for European policy. In what direction? Direction No. 1 – that an agreement was signed between the European Union and Turkey, which only refers to migrants who cross the Aegean Sea and are on the territory of Greece, and did not affect the other external borders of Turkey, including our country. Second – somehow the European Union seems to have predetermined that the issue of refugees should be solved by another country, but not by the European Union itself, and transferred many responsibilities to Turkey. In the third place, we have a very serious remark, because instead of driving refugees back and forth, efforts could be focused mainly on cutting off the canalization flows. Here I think that the Turkish state is in a huge debt both to the European Union and to the whole world, because even now our missions, colleagues who go to Turkey, say that a new, parallel economy is literally developing there – the construction of, for example, small boats and on any sea crossing facilities. All this speaks of very dangerous syndromes, because European funds are spent to return refugees back to Turkish territory, to register in Greece, and these efforts could be united, precisely to interrupt human trafficking. As you can see, the new Turkey-European Union agreement has been in effect for a few days and a new problem has appeared, and that is that a large part of the migrants who are already in the territory of Greece, threatened with being sent back to the Turkish country, have started to ask for asylum in Greece – something that the Greek state cannot handle at this stage either. Sufficient aid has not yet arrived from the European Union, both financial for Greece and purely human and resource, since it is a huge processing of personal documents, for taking fingerprints. I believe that the European Union is still in a huge debt to this country. But there is another danger. Well, a decision was made to close the so-called “Balkan road” through Greece, Macedonia to Western Europe. But how do we avoid the danger of this road transforming, for example, through our country? These are all open questions that will be put in all their sharpness at the next session next week in Strasbourg of the three debates, which in one way or another touch on the migrant crisis and terrorism.
Presenter: And let’s remember, of course, that Bulgaria is not part of the Schengen area and in that sense is vulnerable.
Iliana Yotova: No, Bulgaria is part of the Schengen area, and that is exactly why, somewhat helpfully, together with Romania and Croatia, it is left out of these new policies, which is again a double standard, with nothing inexplicable at this stage. And since you asked at the beginning about changing “Dublin” – there is another big risk and another big danger here. At the beginning, the European Commission itself spoke very boldly about a radical change of “Dublin”, because it is obvious that this agreement does not work. It mainly burdened the countries of first reception, i.e. you know that the refugees had to stay in the territory of those countries where they first enter the European Union. The committee then said that this thing should be changed entirely to have a fair distribution to make the quotas work for the permanent mechanism to work. Now, however, new notes are creeping in – more of a cosmetic change of “Dublin”: you see, with a certain, serious refugee pressure, which is very difficult to determine, because you can have in a month 1000 people passing through a day limit, on the second month you have less or more. I.e. the criteria are too vague and it seems to me that the countries that are on the external border of the European Union will suffer again. This should not be allowed. A reform in “Dublin” must be done, very deep, even to replace the whole agreement, which some time ago did its job when there were not such huge refugee waves to the European Union, but now it has already been emptied by any content. There is also talk of new powers for the Asylum Agency – EASO, this is the abbreviation of the agency, which at this stage has more auxiliary functions – it helps with the registration of refugees. There is an idea to burden it with control functions and for greater powers regarding the return of those who do not have the right to receive refugee status. I am only addressing part of this problem. There are too many more questions waiting to be decided than decisions already made. We were strongly opposed to the way the agreement with Turkey was made, and as you can see, we were right, as the first breakthroughs are in place.
Presenter: Thank you for your participation on Saturday 150.
Iliana Yotova: I thank you too.
Presenter: We remain hopeful for a smart change to the “Dublin Agreement”.
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