EPM PREPARATION #2 “REFUGEES IN EUROPE – EUROPE ‘VS.’ THE REST: CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE?” EUROPEAN STUDENTS’ FORUM
Chapter 1: Becoming a refugee - reality check.
Over the last few months we have heard a lot of myths on (social) media about how much money refugees receive and what a piece of cake their life is after arriving in their destination country. In the second chapter of the EPM preparation we will take a closer look at the reality of obtaining the status in some of the European countries and we will try also to observe how their life really looks like.
We could show you a lot of charts that show the procedure in many different countries, but they will probably not tell you much about the life of refugees. Instead we decided to take a closer look at: • Turkey • Greece • The Netherlands • Germany
TURKEY Turkey now hosts the world’s largest community of Syrians displaced by the ongoing conflict in their country.
Turkish reception policies at the were build on the assumption that the conflict would come to a swift conclusion, allowing the displaced Syrians to return home, but as conditions continue to deteriorate in Syria and the conflict stretches into its fifth year, it has become clear that a shift in policy to encompass longer-term solutions is needed. The Syrian refugee crisis arose as the Turkish government was in the midst of overhauling its immigration system to meet international—and, particularly, European Union—standards. The implementation of these reforms has limited Turkish authorities' capacity to manage the Syrian inflows, and as a result, management of the crisis was left largely in the hands of national organizations working on the ground, in camps, without a general policy guidance. Meanwhile, formal immigration channels, including the recognition of someone’s refugee status, remain restricted to Europeans, while non-Europeans receive a temporary protection status and are expected at some point to resettle in a third country.
ASYLUM PROCEDURE IN TURKEY If you are not from Europe and you want to apply for asylum in Turkey, you can only apply through the UNHCR, but you also have to register with the Turkish police. • If you come into the country with the officially necessary documentation, like a passport or a visa, (“legally”), then you go to the police at the place you are staying, if you decide to seek asylum. • If you have no papers and you want to seek asylum, you must apply at the nearest place to where you entered Turkey. There are only two UNHCR offices, one in Van and one in Ankara. However if the police catches you on the way, they might not believe that you want to apply for asylum, and try to deport you immediately or they will send you back to Van and you have to apply there.
Generally everyone goes to register with the UNHCR first, but you also have to register with the police. In reality they don’t give you a paper of anything, but they can try to prevent you from applying through the UNHCR. If you go to the police by yourself they generally let you apply with the UNHCR (only if they catch you without papers on your way through Turkey, then they will probably deny you the right to apply for asylum). According to international law, the police must give you permission to apply with the UNHCR, but often they try to impede this if they catch you without papers. Then you get a “living permit” (Ikamet) from the police. This costs around 306 TL per person and is only for 6 months. You will have to extend it every 6 months as long as you are in the process of asylum or resettlement with the UNHCR. (This can take very long.) After that the police will probably send you to a different city, they call “satellite city””. The big cities Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir are NOT one of them.
APPLICATION PROCESS The application procedure in Turkey lasts around 6 -12 months. Later the UNHCR will call you for an interview to explain your reasons to be accepted as a refugee. The UNHCR will first decide about your application for asylum (that can take another two years or so) and then, if positive, try to resettle you to a different country (like the USA, Canada, or Norway).
RESETTLEMENT This resettlement process can take very long or can be impossible. The UNHCR in Turkey resettles about 5000 people out of about 10 000 applications per year. Important criteria are if you are elderly, a woman, a child, ill, if you have family in the respective resettlement country or have suffered violence or torture. It is also known that the Turkish Government obstructs the resettlement of recognized refugees (eg. Afghans).
REJECTION OF YOUR APPLICATION If the UNHCR rejects your application, you should normally appeal within 15 days. You have the right to appeal up to three times. The only organisation that can help you appeal against the rejection of your application is Helsinki Citizens Assembly. If you don’t appeal, Turkey wants you to leave the country within 15 days, but in practice they usually take a long time to decide about this. Even if you didn’t appeal within those 15 days, it is possible for UNHCR to reopen your case even months later. Theoretically you also have the right to go to court, but it is very difficult to do so, generally the court will decide negatively.
INTERESTING FACTS
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About 90% of Syrian refugees in Turkey remain outside of camp settings and live in urban and rural areas, with limited access to basic services. The Government of Turkey currently hosts close to 270 000 refugees in 25 camps, with further ongoing costs associated with health, education, food security and social and other technical services offered. It estimates that it has spent over € 7 billion since the beginning of the crisis. Conditions in camps in Turkey are much better than in Lebanon and Jordan.
LIVING IN A TURKISH REFUGEE CAMP •
Even though many Syrians admit that the conditions of the Syrians in Turkey are much better than in Lebanon and Jordan, those residing in the camps have numerous complaints about the camp conditions. Even though food is delivered three times a day, Syrians state that most of the time the food is not edible and that there have been numerous cases of food poisoning.
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Syrians also have complaints about the distribution of basic goods such as soaps, toothpaste and baby food. Some state that the distribution is not fair and that families who are close to the camp administration receive goods while others do not. There has also been an account of Turkman families receiving more aid than Arab families. It is difficult to confirm or deny this claim though. Due to some tensions between Turkman and Arab Syrians, the Turkish government eventually established a separate camp for the Turkmans.
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Camp residents also have complaints about translators saying that they are mostly local peasants of Arab origin. They do not speak Arabic well enough to communicate specific terminology concerning serious issues such as health problems to doctors. Moreover, camp residents state that even though all health costs are covered by the Turkish authorities, most of the time there is a delay in supplying medicines. Furthermore they state that there are no specialists, only general practitioners.
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Complaints have increased during the winter. Many Syrians have remarked that the tents are not suitable for winter weather and that they are flooded each time there is rain. As a result, some Syrians have decided to go back to Syria even though their lives are under threat.
GREECE
ASYLUM PROCEDURE Once you manage to have access to an Asylum Office, an employee will register your personal data and ask you some questions about your origin, the journey you undertook, the reasons for leaving your country, etcetera. A white card, which is called “International protection seeker’s card” will be issued, with your personal details, the day of its issuance and the day of its expiration. On that card, also the date of your interview with the competent committee is written. The “white card” according to Greek law, is valid for 6 months, until the completion of your asylum procedure (if the procedure takes longer it will be renewed). Sometimes it is issued for shorter periods as well. If you don’t present yourself on the day of the interview at the asylum office where you requested asylum, the asylum procedure is concluded. You need a valid reason for not presenting yourself. Only a change of address, which you can report to the Asylum Service, could change the local responsibilities.
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When you are given the “white card” and you know the day of your interview, you should go to one of the Greek NGOs working with asylum seekers where you can be properly and timely prepared for your interview. If your asylum claim is rejected in the first place, you have the right to appeal against the rejection. You have to make sure you refer to an NGO in order to get help. According to the law, if your asylum claim is examined via the normal procedure, you have 30 days to appeal against the rejection. If it is examined with the accelerated procedure, you have 15 days to appeal against the rejection. If you are in prison or detained in a detention center, you have 10 days to appeal against the rejection. If you are in a First Reception Center, the deadline is 3 days. The appeal procedure for the ones who applied via the Asylum Service is generally only possible in written form. If your appeal is also rejected (second instance rejection), you can only appeal before the Appeal Administrative Court and also request a suspension of your removal, which is a long and expensive procedure. Most probably you will have to hire a private lawyer, as Greek NGOs do not have sufficient funds for it, or can only partially cover court expenses.
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Sea arrivals to Greece reduced to an average of 13,500 per week in January, from 22,500 in December. Numbers fluctuate between 05,000 per day. Service provision becomes inadequate when high numbers of migrants arrive and when onward transport to the mainland is disrupted causing temporary build ups to occur. Similar issues occur at Idomeni, where there are recurrent border closures. The conditions migrants find in Greece are still mostly inadequate, whilst conditions further along the route have improved. Selective entry procedures continue to prevent some non-Syrian, Iraqi and -Afghans (non-SIAs) and those not indicating Austria or Germany as their destination from transiting through the Balkan countries. Smuggling along the route appears to be increasing. Winter weather, coupled with insufficient lifesaving equipment, has resulted in increased fatalities at sea.
Arrival numbers are expected to rise as the weather improves. More people will likely become stranded in Greece due to entry restrictions imposed unilaterally by destination countries as well as stricter border controls in the transit region. Greece cannot adequately respond to sudden surges in migrant numbers. Temporary border closures and ferry strikes have already demonstrated that transit camp conditions are inadequate for longer stays. Greek island Hotspots, the reception centres intended to facilitate eventual relocation to other EU Member States and/or referrals to the Greek asylum system, are still being finalised. There are plans to increase camp capacity but this will not be enough to handle potential surges. UNHCR has a new contingency plan in anticipation of up to 200,000 migrants being stuck in Greece in the coming months (IRIN, 02/02/2016). Supporting these numbers would require over 20 times the camp capacity built since the humanitarian response began scaling up in autumn 2015.
LIVING IN A GREEK REFUGEE CAMP •
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Accommodation. Border closures and/or increased arrival numbers will likely result in a significant need for emergency shelter and longer term accommodation. Experience indicates that this accommodation will not be ready on schedule. The Greek government has limited resources and no desire to host more migrants, especially on the islands. Basic Services. WASH facilities serve the short-term basic needs of a mobile population. Many camps, particularly on the mainland, do not provide sufficient access to healthcare and lack appropriate security, particularly at night. Separate WASH facilities and well-lit sleeping areas for women and children are often nonexistent, exposing them to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) risks (AI, 17/01/0216, UNHCR, 20/01/2016). If camp populations expand, existing basic services will be overwhelmed, leading to a rapid deterioration of migrant health and safety. Overcrowding. When bottlenecks occur, the frequent overloading of transit facilities on the Greek islands and on the border with Macedonia causes many migrants to remain in facilities not designed for long-term stay. They may have to sleep outside, walk long distances or get split up from family or travel groups. As overcrowding is usually caused by delayed but also restricted onward travel, tensions rise and possibly lead to violence.
THE NETHERLANDS The first steps: • Any asylum seeker arriving in the Netherlands has to register at the central receiving location in Ter Apel, a village in the province Groningen at the border with Germany. • Here the asylum process starts. During the asylum process, the Immigration and Naturalization Service decides whether the asylum seeker will be granted asylum or not. The asylum seekers will not stay in Ter Apel during the process. They will be placed in asylum seeker centers spread over the country. Before going to such a center, the asylum seeker can have a rest, medical and juridical advice and use some time to prepare its asylum process at one of the three asylum application centers.
THE PROCEDURE
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The asylum procedure takes 8 days. The first 4 days include 4 talks: two with a lawyer, and two with someone of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. After the first 4 days the Immigration and Naturalization Service decides if the application can be decided upon in the common asylum procedure, or if the application needs more time to be examined. The prolonged asylum procedure takes a maximum of 6 days. Is the asylum granted, then the asylum seeker gets a residence permit. This is a temporary one for 5 years. After 5 years the (renewed) asylum seeker can apply for a permanent residence permit.
BEHIND THE SCENES Even though the asylum procedure itself takes only 8 days, or a maximum of 6 months, there are still many people waiting for a longer period of time. This has to do mainly with the increased number of asylum seekers since the worsened situation in the Middle East. Now it can take longer periods of time for an asylum seeker to even start the procedure. There have been accounts of asylum procedures taking years. Critics comment that this is the ‘fault’ of the asylum seekers themselves, by appealing every time their asylum request gets rejected, and of the Dutch government, by allowing this ‘piling of appeals’.
From the moment an asylum seeker enters the asylum procedure, they can do volunteering work at all times. However, volunteering work is only allowed at specific organizations and non-profit companies. After 6 months of the start of the procedure, they can also do regular work, but only for a maximum of 24 weeks per year and a special permission is needed. Asylum seekers who are waiting to enter the asylum procedure have thus nothing to do (they are also not provided language classes), which can lead to boredom and demoralization. Although activities for people waiting to start their procedure are not provided by the government, there has been a significant rise of citizen’s initiatives offering language classes, dinners to meet each other, games, etc.
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As there are more asylum seekers than before, there are more spaces needed to shelter them. These spaces can be turned into a permanent location for asylum seekers who started their procedure (asylum seeker centers) or they are temporary, for asylum seekers who are waiting to start their procedure (crisis shelters). • The trend is that both asylum seeker centers and crisis shelters are placed mainly outside of the (bigger) cities. • ‘Fun’ fact: the gym that you will sleep in during the EPM has also been used as a crisis shelter in October. • ‘Not-so-fun’ fact: there have been some incidents regarding the allocation of asylum seekers close to several Dutch villages. Some of the most viral stories:
17/12/15, Geldermalsen – a protest against the placing of an asylum seeker center spiraled out of control.
21/10/15, Steenbergen – a meeting about possibly having an asylum seeker center went everything but well, when a part of the crowd started yelling and chanting insulting comments, making it hard for pro asylum seeker center opinions to be heard.
6/10/15, Oranje – inhabitants start to block the road to asylum seekers and the politicians who decided that another 700 asylum seekers (making it 1400 in total) would be located near the village.
Later on, the incident in Oranje was still not approved of, but became more understandable when it became clear that the 700 extra asylum seekers were already turned away by the inhabitants before, but this decision was in the end (forcibly) ignored by authorities. Keep in mind that Oranje has only a 140 (!) inhabitants. They had been living with 700 asylum seekers without much problems for a while already (see picture), but having a 1/10 ratio (inhabitants/asylum seekers), was not something they could agree to.
ASYLUM PROCEDURE IN GERMANY •
Those wishing to apply for asylum should contact an initial reception facility where their personal data is recorded. Fingerprints are taken, and the applicant is also photographed. An exception is made for those who have not yet turned 14. Applicants will receive a temporary residence permit. The next step is to create an application for asylum. Applicants must appear in person at the branch office.
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The Federal Criminal Police Office then checks the fingerprints, which are also compared against other existing records using a system that records fingerprints taken throughout Europe. It checks whether an applicant already applied for asylum in another EU Member State.
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Applicants for asylum may live in the Federal Republic while the asylum process is pending. Once applicants have created their application, they will receive a residence title for specific purposes.
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An application for asylum cannot be created from outside of Germany.
CAN THEY DO IT? • • •
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Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, launched the “We Can Do It” policy in September 2015. This policy opened the borders to Syrian refugees. She did not realize that this kind of policy would attract so many refugees. Now Germany is implementing measures to stem the overwhelming influx of refugees and asylum seekers. In Germany, the debate about refugees is fastly becoming a constitutional crisis. Abroad, it has turned into a foreign policy crisis. Chancellor Merkel’s welcoming statement “We Can Do It” (“Wir schaffen das!”) has upset Germany's European partners, who are wary of her mixture of profound ethics paired with self-righteousness, high-handedness and naiveté. To many Germans, the migration crisis appears out of control. Large numbers of refugees continue to flow into the country challenging order. The sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne on New Year’s Eve undermined the credibility of the German government, both in- and outside of the country, while a lot remains unclear about what exactly happened that night. Lastly, it is getting increasingly difficult for Germany to separate the debate on terrorism from the one about migration and asylum.
CHAPTER 2: EU DECISIONS
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
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April 2015
The number of refugees was rapidly increasing and there were many victims. Therefore, European leaders called for a special meeting to look for structural solutions. Several agreements meant to reduce the problem were made.
STATE OF THE UNION •
September 2015
The agreements made at the extra meeting of the European Council proved to be insufficient, and increasingly more refugees were reaching the EU. The EU and Schengen’s zone were in danger. Jean-Claude Juncker of the Commission revealed a list of priorities regarding the refugee crisis.
VALLETTA SUMMIT •
November 2015
Emergency fund of 1,87 billion dollars was agreed on. Also agreed on: more effort to stop human traffickers. After the meeting there was an unofficial meeting among European leaders. During the meeting they agreed to support Turkey with 3 billion dollar, if they reduce the flow of migrants.
MEETING OF THE EU HEADS OF STATE OR GOVERNMENT WITH TURKEY
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November 2015
They EU views Turkey as an important partner regarding the refugee crisis. Turkey receives many refugees, who then move along to Europe.
CONSULTATION WITH THE SECRETARIES OF MIGRATION OF GERMANY, DENMARK AND SWEDEN
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January 2016
The secretaries of Migration of Germany, Denmark and Sweden consulted with European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos about the migration issues. These countries had decided the same week to start with border controls, when it became apparent that these countries were popular destinations for large groups of migrants.