A MONTH ON from the US pullout from Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover of the country by the Taliban, questions have turned from rescue missions to migration.
Several countries in the European Union, including Ireland, have pledged to accept refugees that managed to flee the now theocratic state before the agreed deadline of 31 August.
The crisis in Afghanistan has brought fresh attention to the fact that the EU does not have a unified refugee plan in place.
This was directly addressed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her annual State of the Union speech last week.
Speaking before the European Parliament, von der Leyen talked about the “painfully slow” progress on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, saying that if it was brought in, it would “give us everything we need to manage the different types of situations we face”.
The Pact, which was proposed last September, provides a common European framework for migration and asylum management and includes several legislative proposals, including establishing a common asylum procedure and pre-entry external border screenings.
However, this framework has yet to be adopted and there is currently no unified migration and asylum plan for all 27 EU member states.
Von der Leyen asked MEPs to hurry up in passing the pact: “I think, this is the moment now for a European migration management policy. So I urge you, in this House and in Member States, to speed up the process,” she said.
With this in mind, what is the current state of play around migration in Europe? And is it likely to change any time soon?
Who is currently allowed to travel and work in Europe?
If you are an EU national, you don’t need to show your national ID card or passport when travelling from one border-free Schengen EU country to another. Ireland is not a member of the Schengen borderless area.
Non-EU nationals need a valid passport and possibly a visa, depending on the country they want to travel to. If the visa is from a Schengen area country, it automatically allows for travel to the other Schengen countries as well.
For migrants and refugees arriving in the EU, they must first have an application for refugee status accepted before they can apply to work in their chosen country.
Besides Lithuania, all member states grant asylum seekers the right to work at some point during their application process.
Sweden grants asylum seekers the immediate right to work, while Belgium, Italy and Spain are among other countries who grant the right to work after the more common period of six months. Asylum seekers in France and Germany must wait a year before being granted the right to work.
Ireland granted asylum seekers the right to work in 2018. However, a report published this year found that many still face barriers while trying to access employment here.
It found that employment choices are “disproportionately restricted” for asylum seekers, and that many administrative barriers still prevent them from accessing the labour market, such as having no legal right to a driving licence and issues with opening a bank account.
Can migrants claim residency in Europe?
Non-EU citizens who wish to live in Europe can apply for a residence permit, or single permit. This will allow them to stay in a respective EU country for at least three months.
Migrants usually enter the country on a number of temporary permits before applying for residency. As of January 2020, 5% of the EU’s 447.3 million inhabitants were non-EU citizens.
In 2019, almost three million first residence permits were issued in the EU to citizens of non-member countries, the highest number recorded in that decade.
The number of first residence permits that were issued increased by 5.8%, or 163,000, compared with the previous year, the seventh consecutive annual increase.
Applications for those wishing to obtain residency permits are compiled into four categories: family reasons, educational reasons, work reasons and other reasons. Refugees come under the latter category.
Of the first residence permits issued in 2019, 40.5% were for employment reasons, followed by family reasons at 27%.
Other reasons for seeking a permit were 18.5% while educational reasons stood at 13.5%.
EU Blue Card
Another measure to allow people born outside of the EU to reside there is the EU Blue Card scheme.
The card gives highly-qualified workers from outside the EU the right to live and work in an EU country under certain conditions.
The European Parliament and the Council approved a revised Blue Card Directive on 17 May which makes the requirements for the card easier to meet so that more international talent can relocate to Europe.
In order to qualify for a card, applicants have to prove that they have “higher professional qualifications”, such as a university degree, as well as an employment contract or a job offer in an EU country for at least one year.
Applicants must also work as a paid employee, as the card does not apply to self-employed work or entrepreneurs, and have an annual gross salary of at least one and a half times the average national salary – except when the lower salary threshold applies.
Every EU country has a different salary threshold. Last year, the minimum salary in France was €53,836. In Germany, €53,600 was the minimum salary required, while it was significantly lower in Italy at €24,789.
Cards are valid for between one and four years, depending on the issuing country. Holders of the card and their families can also move freely to other EU member countries.
Can they then claim citizenship?
If someone has stayed legally in an EU country for a certain period of time uninterrupted, they can apply to become a citizen of that state through naturalisation.
The minimum period of residency varies from three to ten years depending on the country.
According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, people with refugee status can apply for naturalisation in Ireland after three years’ residency in the state from the date they arrived in the country.
Some countries ask applicants to undertake a citizenship test to show they have a certain level of knowledge of the country where they live, such as its political system, history, culture and values as well as underlying rights and obligations.
Applicants also have to meet certain language requirements in the majority of EU member states, though this is not the case in Ireland.
In 2019, 706,000 foreign citizens acquired the citizenship of an EU member state, including migrants who were non-EU citizens, and migrants who were citizens of other member states and stateless and unknown citizenship categories.
Citizens of non-EU member states accounted for 84.7% of the total number of people granted citizenship in 2019.
Germany recorded the highest number of migrants being granted citizenship in 2019, with around 132,000 foreign citizens becoming German, while 127,000 foreign citizens acquired the citizenship of Italy and 110,000 the citizenship of France.
Approximately 5,800 people were granted Irish citizenship in 2019.
What is included in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum?
Essentially, the pact sets out the European Commission’s new approach to migration. It addresses border management and aims to integrate the internal and external dimensions of migration policies.
This would introduce tougher border controls, a compulsory pre-screening of asylum seekers and a swift return procedure for those who are denied entry to a respective country.
One part of the proposal includes a “collective responsibility” for refugees and asylum seekers, which would see the prospect of hosting migrants being shared out across the 27 member states instead of being concentrated on countries in the south of Europe.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 40,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year.
These countries could then activate a “compulsory solidarity mechanism”, which would call on all other member states to contribute towards helping them based on their population and economy.
The Commission is also proposing to set up a “pool of pledges” where member states would pledge to accept a number of migrants based on an annual projection of needs.
Those that do not pledge to take in any migrants will be asked contribute funds instead to help those that do.
While the concept of migrant “quotas” for each EU member state was discussed lengthily by the Council of Europe, no unanimous decision was reached and there is currently none in place.
Despite this, the number of asylum applications continues to grow.
According to the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), around 50,000 applications for asylum were lodged in the EU in July, the highest number seen since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Applications corresponded to more than 80% of the number in February 2020, the last month when applications were unaffected by the pandemic.
The majority of the applications came from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq. Applications by Afghans increased for the fifth consecutive month, to about 7,300. This was the most since February 2020 and twice the level in February 2021.
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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