Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

First asylum seekers leave Italy under EU plan

UPDATED: A small group of Eritreans left Italy for Sweden on Friday, the first contingent of asylum-seekers to be relocated under a European Union scheme to ease the burden of the migration crisis on frontline countries.

Published: 9 October 2015 09:49 CEST
Updated: 9 October 2015 11:17 CEST
First asylum seekers leave Italy under EU plan
A group of Eritrean refugees prepare to board a plane to travel to Sweden as part of a new programme of the EU to relocate refugees. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Grinning shyly before the media, 19 young Eritreans shook hands with EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and waved as they boarded a financial police plane at Rome's Ciampino airport.

“Today is an important day for the European Union, it is a day of victory… for those who believe in Europe, for those who believed in saving human lives,” Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told journalists after the departure.

“It is a defeat for those who claim it is better for the Mediterranean to become a lake of death… and believe that scaring the European people is the way forward,” he added.

The asylum seekers are being transferred to Sweden after it agreed on July 20th to take refugees from Italy and Greece in a bid to ease the humanitarian and financial burden on the two frontline states over two years.

They will fly to Luleå in northern Sweden, after which they will hand in their applications for asylum at a centre in Boden, according to a press release from Sweden's Migration Agency. The refugees – 14 men and five women – will then be offered a spot at a centre for refugees in the Östersund area in Sweden's Jämtland region.

Swedish Migration Minister Morgan Johansson welcomed that the scheme was being implemented for the first time on Friday at an EU summit in Luxembourg on Thursday.

“This is the first example of this issue of redistribution that we have fought for so much, to make sure that we are all prepared to accept our part of the responsibility,” he was quoted by the Swedish TT news agency as telling fellow ministers.

“Symbolically, it's very important. (…) It is important now that all countries live up to what we have actually promised each other. We break the ice and make sure that the implementation begins,” he said.

The EU formally agreed on the plan last month despite the opposition of some eastern European states worried about a popular backlash to migrants.

'More must be done'

Alfano said Italy was ready to relocate 100 more asylum-seekers who would go to Germany and the Netherlands, and the UNHCR said further relocations would take place from Italy at the beginning of next week.

“This is a significant day, a positive and important one,” the UN refugee agency's southern Europe spokeswoman, Carlotta Sami, told AFP.

“But we know more must be done. There is a great need for measures to be put in place to allow (asylum-seekers) to arrive in Europe safely,” she said, referring to perilous boat crossings in the Mediterranean which have cost over 3,000 people their lives this year alone.

The Eritreans had been rescued on the high seas over the past few weeks and taken to an experimental migrant screening centre or “hotspot” on Lampedusa island, where they were registered.

Avramopoulos and Asselborn were expected to travel to the Italian island later Friday to examine the centre, a prototype for several set to open at the end of November across Italy and Greece.

On Thursday, EU nations agreed to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers and crack down on so-called “economic migrants” – who are largely from poor African nations and not refugees from conflict zones.

A UN report in June detailed how the Horn of Africa nation, under Isaias Afwerki's iron-fisted regime for the past 22 years, has created a repressive system in which people are routinely arrested on a whim, detained, tortured, killed or disappeared.

The EU hopes the closed centres will sharply reducing the number of people who arrive by boat, refuse to be identified and head off across the borders to other bloc countries to seek a new life.

The centres and relocations are part of a multi-point plan which includes a military anti-people trafficker operation.

The UN's Security Council is set to vote Friday on a draft resolution to authorise military action against smugglers with Operation Sophia, which launched this week to seize traffickers' boats in international waters.

While the vote is not necessary for the EU to take action, the measure would legitimise plans under which European warships will board ships for inspection, confiscate them and even dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers.

BREXIT

OPINION: Pre-Brexit Brits in Europe should be given EU long-term residency

The EU has drawn up plans to make it easier for non-EU citizens to gain longterm EU residency so they can move more easily around the bloc, but Italy-based citizens' rights campaigner Clarissa Killwick says Brits who moved to the EU before Brexit are already losing out.

Published: 8 December 2023 14:34 CET
OPINION: Pre-Brexit Brits in Europe should be given EU long-term residency

With all the talk about the EU long-term residency permit and the proposed improvements there is no mention that UK citizens who are Withdrawal Agreement “beneficiaries” are currently being left out in the cold.

The European Commission has stated that we can hold multiple statuses including the EU long-term permit (Under a little-known EU law, third-country nationals can in theory acquire EU-wide long-term resident status if they have lived ‘legally’ in an EU country for at least five years) but in reality it is just not happening.

This effectively leaves Brits locked into their host countries while other third country nationals can enjoy some mobility rights. As yet, in Italy, it is literally a question of the computer saying no if someone tries to apply.

The lack of access to the EU long-term permit to pre-Brexit Brits is an EU-wide issue and has been flagged up to the European Commission but progress is very slow.

READ ALSO: EU government settle on rules for how non-EU citizens could move around Europe

My guess is that few UK nationals who already have permanent residency status under the Withdrawal Agreement are even aware of the extra mobility rights they could have with the EU long-term residency permit – or do not even realise they are two different things.

Perhaps there won’t be very large numbers clamouring for it but it is nothing short of discrimination not to make it accessible to British people who’ve built their lives in the EU.

They may have lost their status as EU citizens but nothing has changed concerning the contributions they make, both economically and socially.

An example of how Withdrawal Agreement Brits in Italy are losing out

My son, who has lived almost his whole life here, wanted to study in the Netherlands to improve his employment prospects.

Dutch universities grant home fees rather than international fees to holders of an EU long-term permit. The difference in fees for a Master’s, for example, is an eye-watering €18,000. He went through the application process, collecting the requisite documents, making the payments and waited many months for an appointment at the “questura”, (local immigration office).

On the day, it took some persuading before they agreed he should be able to apply but then the whole thing was stymied because the national computer system would not accept a UK national. I am in no doubt, incidentally, that had he been successful he would have had to hand in his WA  “carta di soggiorno”.

This was back in February 2022 and nothing has budged since then. In the meantime, it is a question of pay up or give up for any students in the same boat as my son. There is, in fact, a very high take up of the EU long-term permit in Italy so my son’s non-EU contemporaries do not face this barrier.

Long-term permit: The EU’s plan to make freedom of movement easier for non- EU nationals 

Completing his studies was stalled by a year until finally his Italian citizenship came through after waiting over 5 years.  I also meet working adults in Italy with the EU long-term permit who use it for work purposes, such as in Belgium and Germany, and for family reunification.  

Withdrawal agreement card should double up as EU long-term residency permit

A statement that Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries should be able to hold multiple statuses is not that easy to find. You have to scroll quite far down the page on the European Commission’s website to find a link to an explanatory document. It has been languishing there since March 2022 but so far not proved very useful.

It has been pointed out to the Commission that the document needs to be multilingual not just in English and “branded” as an official communication from the Commission so it can be used as a stand-alone. But having an official document you can wave at the immigration authorities is going to get you nowhere if Member State governments haven’t acknowledged that WA beneficiaries can hold multiple statuses and issue clear guidance and make sure systems are modified accordingly.

I can appreciate this is no mean feat in countries where they do not usually allow multiple statuses or, even if they do, issue more than one residency card. Of course, other statuses we should be able to hold are not confined to EU long-term residency, they should include the EU Blue Card, dual nationality, family member of an EU citizen…

Personally, I do think people should be up in arms about this. The UK and EU negotiated an agreement which not only removed our freedom of movement as EU citizens, it also failed to automatically give us equal mobility rights to other third country nationals. We are now neither one thing nor the other.

It would seem the only favour the Withdrawal Agreement did us was we didn’t have to go out and come back in again! Brits who follow us, fortunate enough to get a visa, may well pip us at the post being able to apply for EU long-term residency as clearly defined non-EU citizens.

I have been bringing this issue to the attention of the embassy in Rome, FCDO and the European Commission for three years now. I hope we will see some movement soon.

Finally, there should be no dragging of heels assuming we will all take citizenship of our host countries. Actually, we shouldn’t have to, my son was fortunate, even though it took a long time. Others may not meet the requirements or wish to give up their UK citizenship in countries which do not permit dual nationality.  

Bureaucratic challenges may seem almost insurmountable but why not simply allow our Withdrawal Agreement permanent card to double up as the EU long-term residency permit.

Clarissa Killwick,

Since 2016, Clarissa has been a citizens’ rights campaigner and advocate with the pan-European group, Brexpats – Hear Our Voice.
She is co-founder and co-admin of the FB group in Italy, Beyond Brexit – UK citizens in Italy.

SHOW COMMENTS