Nuria Hernández takes part in the 20th edition of IMISCOE with her paper: “Asylum policy in the European Union: focused on human rights or security?”
The International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion Research Network or better known as IMISCOE is the largest interdisciplinary network of experts in migration studies, with more than 63 research institutes adhered from different countries and with approaches from the perspective of sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, law, demography, history and geography.
Each year an international conference is held on a specific topic and an open call for papers is issued. This year, the conference is being held in Warsaw on July 3, 4, 5 and 6 under the title “Migration and Inequalities. In search of answers and solutions”.
Our colleague, Nuria Hernández, has been able to present in this conference part of the results obtained from her thesis related to the Rule of Law. Nuria shared the panel number 98, , “EU and national refugee governance”, with academics coming from the University of Tunis, Kadir Has University, Justus Liebig University Giessen, and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.
Professor and PhD in Political Science at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University, emphasized that one of the thematic areas in which the Rule of Law project in the European Union is framed is the protection of vulnerable groups and other checks and balances, recalling that the latter, the checks and balances, make up the fourth pillar on which the Commission collects information for its annual reports to analyze the evolution of the rule of law and democratic values in the European Union and in the various Member States.
In this sense, her communication has been framed, which has presented the shortcomings of a Spanish asylum system lacking in resources that receives without integrating and of European and national policies focused on the securitization and externalization of borders, thus preventing applications from being submitted in Spanish territory.
The same conclusion was reached by the other speakers, who pointed out the need to establish legal and safe ways for asylum seekers to reach Europe and the establishment of a real and effective common agreement on migration and asylum between Member States.
Prof. Nuria Hernández points to the war in Ukraine as an example that when there is political will, human rights can be respected, the most vulnerable can be protected and international legislation and covenants on the protection of refugees can be complied with. However, the extremist discourses in Europe opposing “them” vs “us”, hinder the pacts we have been waiting for with the Common Asylum System since 2016, as Ida Saidani, who is currently pursuing a PhD in Migration Studies at the University of Granada, stressed.
Moreover, securitization is still a problem, as Eramn Ermihan reminded, comparing the European border with the Turkish one; something that makes sense if we take into account the migration pacts between the two to control migration to Europe.
The danger for the protection of refugees posed by the intersection between the areas of asylum, irregular economic migration and other types of migration was also discussed, and it was recalled that the protection of refugees is a legally binding commitment made by the Member States and the European Union itself.
Concluding, Prof. Hernandez, points out that, “As we saw with the 2015 crisis, and as we will see in the future, if appropriate measures are not taken, the rule of law in the European Union may be weakened. Especially if vulnerable people such as refugees are not protected and, in addition, xenophobic or racist discourses are promoted by interchanging categories of migrants without taking into account the personal and individual causes that motivated migration.”
