On Wednesday, the Polish Border Guard released a new video showing a section of its new border fence, the latest piece of infrastructure in the European Union’s migration control apparatus. That same day, in Brussels, Europe was doing what it could to ensure that those fleeing Putin’s terror in Ukraine would be supported. “Those who flee need to have their rights quickly reestablished - to work, have access to healthcare, be sure of a roof over their heads and schools for children,” tweeted the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson. “They must also be safe from risks of trafficking.”
The Ukrainian conflict, and the arrival into the EU of millions of Ukrainian refugees, have revealed again the contradiction at the heart of the European establishment, between the so-called European values that Brussels seeks to espouse, and the migration war that the European Union and its proxies have long engaged in.
Since the onset of the migrant crisis almost a decade ago, the EU and its member states have spent vast sums on building the walls of Fortress Europe, investing in patrol boats, aircraft, drones and border guards, as well as financing the Coast Guards of external countries such as Turkey and, most significantly, Libya. In that time, the budget of the EU’s border agency Frontex mushroomed, growing from €83m in 2012, to €543m in 2021. The EU is set to spend €1.9bn on migration control this year, €758m of which is allocated for Frontex.
Most of those the EU has sought to keep out are also victims of conflict and persecution - in Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. But the response to these victims has been qualitatively different to the response to those fleeing Ukraine, with the EU taking unprecedented steps to deal with the Ukraine crisis, such as invoking the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time on March 3. The directive requires EU member states to accept refugees as allocated, and also gives the refugees themselves stronger rights, including access to the labour market and education.
The issue of race in accounting for this disparity cannot be overlooked. An investigation published on Thursday by a group of European news organizations, including The Independent, Der Spiegel, and Radio France, showed that Black and brown refugees fleeing the conflict were detained in immigration facilities. “We escaped Ukraine, a very horrible experience, the biggest risk of my life,” said a Nigerian refugee who was detained. “Everything was scary and I thought that was the end of it. And now we are in detention.”
The complicity into the abuse of non-white migrants and refugees reaches the highest level in Europe’s border control system. For years now, the EU has been providing support to the Libya to enable it to arrest and detain migrants and refugees before they reach Europe, and an investigation into Frontex by the European Anti-Fraud Office, details of which were published this month in Der Spiegel, accuses Frontex’s senior leadership team of covering up illegal pushbacks in Greece. In one incident, the Greek Coast Guard towed a migrant raft back out to sea and abandoned it as a Frontex surveillance plane watched on. The full findings of the investigation have yet to be released, despite multiple requests from parliamentarians.
Despite all these revelations - of illegal pushbacks, of murder in Libyan migrant prisons, and of European complicity - the Commission’s support of Fortress Europe continues. In February, it committed to providing five new vessels to the Libyan Coast Guard, and, earlier this month, it committed to purchasing twelve new boats for the Turkish Coast Guard to “reduce irregular migration and all kinds of illegal cross-border activity.”
ICYMI
Europeans rally behind Green Deal in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine
via Euractiv
During a meeting of the EU’s 27 environment ministers last week, there was overwhelming support for speeding up climate legislation as a way of breaking Europe’s dependence on Russia. “The international context has changed dramatically, and our debate now takes place in a very serious situation and takes on a whole new tenor given the threat to European sovereignty,” said French ecological transition minister Barbara Pompili as she opened the meeting.
Europe’s black seas
Big battles have been won against ships illegally dumping oily wastewater. But the fight isn’t over. This investigation estimates that 3,000 vessels discharge mineral oil into European waters annually – the equivalent to eight spills per day, each the size of 750 football fields.
Explore the global assets of Russia's oligarchs and enablers
via OCCRP
A sizable chunk of Russia’s wealth has been siphoned offshore by corrupt politicians and well-connected businessmen. We wanted to know where it went — so we started hunting. OCCRP and its partners trawled land records, corporate registries, and offshore leaks to come up with this database of assets belonging to key figures close to Vladimir Putin.
Deal on Digital Markets Act: EU rules to ensure fair competition and more choice for users
The text provisionally agreed by Parliament and Council negotiators targets large companies providing so-called “core platform services” most prone to unfair business practices, such as social networks or search engines, with a market capitalisation of at least 75 billion euro or an annual turnover of 7.5 billion. To be designated as “gatekeepers”, these companies must also provide certain services such as browsers, messengers or social media, which have at least 45 million monthly end users in the EU.and 10 000 annual business users.
FOIA requests
In February, the Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson visited Senegal, where she floated the idea that the EU and Senegal should deepen their cooperation on migration control - she even suggested the possibility of “armed troops” being deployed to the country. Documents released under freedom-of-information requests and published by the transparency organization FragDenStaat show the plans for increased cooperation on migration control with Senegal have been under discussion for some time. The documents show meetings between Senagelese officials and Frontex took place on November 30 and December 1. See them here.
Next week
The Subcommittee on Human Rights in the European Parliament is hosting a public hearing with Professor Philippe Sands where the prospect of accountability for war crimes committed in Ukraine will be discussed. Sands has proposed “the establishment of an ad hoc international tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.” The hearing will take place on Monday, March 28, at around 1pm local time.