Migration policy: migrant instrumentalisation and Ukrainian refugee crisis call for a fresh start

The state-sponsored instrumentalisation of migrants, aimed at destabilising the EU, and the unprecedented influx of refugees as a result of war in Ukraine call for a review of European migration policy. The EESC insists that solidarity and burden-sharing among Member States are needed for a common response to refugee crises. At the same time, it highlights the need to guarantee migrants' safety and human rights. 

In the EESC opinion Instrumentalisation of migrants, adopted at the June plenary, members emphasised that the EU's response to this tactic should be based on a common, shared and coherent migration policy. 

The upcoming and much hoped-for specific regulation in this field should provide a solidarity-based form of responsibility-sharing between the Member States. 

Especially now, with the war in Ukraine and the massive refugee flows, it has become clear that migration impacts all Member States. Therefore, the new Pact on Migration and Asylum should be redesigned in order to bring about the systemic change necessary to develop a rational, rights-based asylum and migration policy. 

Stefano Palmieri, rapporteur for the EESC opinion, underlined: "It is now necessary to continue working towards consolidating Europe's reputation as a place able to provide humanitarian aid and guarantee compliance with human rights".

Regarding "hybrid threats" deployed by third countries to test the EU's unity, Pietro Vittorio Barbieri, co-rapporteur for the EESC opinion, stressed that human beings were not the threat but rather the victims of such tactics. 

The migrants involved are highly vulnerable and in need of protection, emphasised the EESC, insisting that humanitarian assistance has to meet the standards required under EU law and comply with established practices for supporting vulnerable individuals. The EESC recommends a fair, full and immediate recognition of the rights of instrumentalised migrants, avoiding grey areas of administrative uncertainty. (at)