Free Policy Paper Middle Eastern And North Africa Refugees Research Paper Sample

1. Introduction and statement of the problem
Europe and European Union are facing one of the biggest migration and refugee problems after the history. The influxes of the migrants that are fleeing from the Middle Eastern and North African countries are risking their lives to reach the old continent. The deteriorating human rights, civil war, insecurity and abuses are forcing people to risk their lives on boats and long journeys. The majority of them are coming by boat which is increasing the threat of drowning that has reached alarming rates in the recent past. Based on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – UNHCR (n. p.) the Middle East and North Africa – MENA region is confronted with the restless environment and insecurity with the biggest humanitarian crisis in Syria, deteriorating security in Iraq, Libya and Yemen, is resulting in the population of the region becoming the victims of smuggling and trafficking along with taking the perilous journeys.
The situation is calling for the implementation of common refugee policy and the paper will focus to present the policy recommendations. Those recommendations include tackling the crime and human trafficking, common asylum system, functioning Schengen border and overall common migration policy or agenda. All this will be incorporated into the establishing of the Special Committee by the European Parliament, which will be established for the period of 12 months and the possibility of extension. It will serve as the temporary committee to deal with the refuge and migration crisis. There are different immigration rules in each European countries and the European Union should be working as one in order to tackle the issues of migrants and refugees. The policy proposal and recommendations are regarded to the European Parliament (European Parliament, n. p.). The paper will argue that the European Union should accept the ones in need and the ones that should be protected under the international law and to return the ones that are seeking refugee unjustified and are found to be economic migrants.
2. Elaboration on the rationale behind the policy
2.1. Objectives
Member countries have a moral and legal duty to help people who fled danger and all should do everything in their power to reduce the suffering of the people that are entitled to the international protection under the international law and to the provision of the sanctuary. Ineligible migrants must be prevented to enter into the union and the illegal entrance should be established with the enforcement forces and help of all member states. In order to avoid further misunderstandings among the European Union member states the common solution needs to be provided under which all countries would work to achieve better cooperation, and better handling of the current migrant crisis. It is obvious that without all European Union members’ cooperation the solution will be harder to find and implement. The policy recommendation is therefore to create the legal binding scheme and policy under which all member states will be obliged to contribute to the solution of the migration crisis in the European Union.
The policy covers all major aspects of disagreement and non-cooperation among the member states. The European migrant crisis is resulting in the increasing migrant arrivals, which are refugees and also economic migrants. The member countries have in the year 2014 received around 132.405 requests from the migrant among those 23.295 were accepted and entitled to the some form of protection, while the majority were rejected. Four countries and hence Germany, Italy, France and Sweden received the majority of the applications. The illegal migrations began in the year 2007 where the Frontex, as a border control was upgraded. Forntex’s Operation Poseidon was launched in order to patrol the Aegean sea (Townsend, 1-6). The policy would enhance the obligation and duty to cooperate in the external border protection in order to prevent illegal entrance and prevent the further casualties. The crisis has been the most known by the victims of the shipwrecks and drowning, were based on the International Organization for Migration only in 2014 in the Mediterranean more than 3.072 people died. Over 22.000 migrants died in the period of time from 2000 and 2014. Every month there are more than thousands of migrants risking their lives across the Mediterranean Sea. The Operation mare Nostrum was lunched in the Italy as a naval rescuing where the operation ended the next year in 2014 after the establishment because of the large associated costs and no financial help from the European members and operation Triton replaced it (Townsend, 1-6). The financial and personnel support must be guaranteed in order to enhance and increase the operation aiming at saving lives at sea and to provide safety to the people in need. The national policies regarding the migration policies should be unified and should with the cooperation prevent the further building of fences which started with the fence in Greek-Turkish frontier and continued in Bulgaria to prevent migrants coming into the country from the Turkish direction, and Hungary. Various other European Union countries have used the same technique, which is not leading towards the migration crisis solution. The majorities of migrants are from the MENA region and have different migration paths. The majorities are coming to Italy, Turkey and Greece from land and sea and use six main general routes. Human traffickers are charging different amounts to illegal immigrants from $1000 to up to 12.000 EUR, depending on the arrival destination. The fluxes of migrants in the bordering countries have resulted in inadequate handling and resources to take care of the immense number of daily arrivals (Townsend, 1-6).
3. Possible solution - policy
The Special Committee should address the issues and make binding recommendations on the complication of the common asylum system that would be comparable among all member states. The shared responsibilities should include the shared managing of the European Union border with including the police, coast and border guards that would prevent illegal entrance at the external borders. Common asylum policy should be established by the committee in order to enhance the cooperation and trust among the members. The numbers of asylum seekers have been increasing and in order to process the applications the personnel from all countries should be included to provide the decisions as soon as possible. The fully amended implementation of the Dublin systems should be promoted and carried out. At the borders the fingerprints on that entire European Union border must be collected in order for the Schengen system regain the trust. The protecting the external border is of vital interest of the whole union and the operations carried out must be enhanced (European Commission, 2-22).
The investigation and prosecution of the traffic groups and individuals is needed for the safety of the migrants and refugees should be in the first place. The government xenophobia and racism should be diminished since refugees and migrants are not the reasons for the European economic crisis and incidents such as racial discrimination of all kinds should be prevented at any costs. In various countries the rise of nationalism in the light of the migrations has been seen by the right political parties gaining more support. Fighting the smuggling is not the core reason for the immigration and that is why fighting only this aspect will not resolve the migration crisis. The Special Committee should be implemented in order to carry out the solutions given by the European Commission, European Parliament and European Council. The member states do not fulfil obligations and their proposed solutions need to be implemented. The lack of clarity should be diminished with clearly stating where all member states can get the answers regarding the issue, from how will the relocation system work, to what schemes will be implemented. The obligation and rights must be clearly pointed out and also implemented and monitored (Blunt, n. p.).
Dublin Regulation to regulate asylum seekers must be adjusted. There is however no mechanism that would guarantee to implement the legislation on the member states, which must be adjusted. There are demands from the European Commissions and other institutions, but there is no legal binding and consequences of not implementing the directives and legislation. The common refugee and migrant policy should be adopted and implement that would prevent the polarization of two sides seen today one against and another for the shared burden of the migration crisis. The cooperation would be enhanced and with it also the overall operation that are already implemented to tackle the issue. The centralized running of the issue should be seen with the legal binding decisions that would base on the respecting the international humanitarian laws and laws regarded to the refuge and migrations. Until the refugee crisis will be dealt collectively there will be no comprehensive solution in sight.
Based on the fact that the majority of the migrants and refugees are coming from major directions, the European Union should be trying to prevent the illegal trafficking and encourage further operational funding of the sea operation of Frontex. European agency must carry out the policy to prevent further migrant smuggling. European anti-trafficking coordinator should improve coordination between the European institutions, agencies and member states with the third countries in the case of migration in human trafficking in the country of the majority of the Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, The Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Libya and other origin.
However, various groups of the human trafficking have been discovered inside the European Union, where the groups or individuals were smuggling people from one country to another in exchange for money the closer cooperation between various European agencies is needed such as Europol, Eurojsut, CEPOL, EASO, EIGE, FRA and Frontex. With the help of the European Parliament, which main role in the migration is to adopt resolution could express an opinion on this matter that would promote the cooperation between the member states. They must share information and intelligence in order to prevent human trafficking. With the enhancing the protection mechanism the negotiation with the neighboring countries of MENA region must be accomplished. The negotiation should include financial and personal help, which would diminish the dangerous attempts to reach Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.
3.1. Analysis of policy
3.1.1. Cons of the policy
The bad sides of the proposed policy reside in the establishment of the Special Committee, which can be set up based on the proposal of the Conference of Presidents Parliament at any time, which powers, terms and composition are defined at the time of the establishment. The committee can only be established by Parliament voting and must decide on the committee powers prior to the establishment, since subsequent decisions to increase or reduce power are impossible (European Parliament, 104). The formal establishment can result in some difficulties the policy could encounter. The members of the European Parliament could decide and give the Special Committee the insufficient power or could result in no agreement to the establishment via voting. With insufficient power the committee’s ability to tackle the European migrant crisis would be hindered. The policy downsizes are therefore in the basic implementation where the opponents of the accepting migrations, such as Hungary, Great Britain, Poland and other countries could result in the no actions implemented.
3.1.2. Pros of the policy
The pros of the suggested policy could result in the establishment of the Special Committee for centralized dealing with the migration crisis, that would act in the name of all member states and find common and binding solutions to the current migration issues that must be resolved on the international and European Union level. The establishment would result in comprehensive guiding of the area of migration that would deal and coordinate the work of all institutions and organs currently working in this area and would bring the common policy in this matter and save the Schengen system that has in recent times not been functioning and has been put under the question. The committee could resolve issues such as distribution of financial help and relocations of the refugees among the member states where all member states would contribute equal shares. Those shares and under which conditions would be decided by the Special Committee. The committee could address all major areas of contemporary contra arguments in the migration crisis. The implementation of the policy would result in greater cooperation among the member states and common action that would improve the migration crisis.
3.2. Alternatives to the policy
Alternatives to the policy are voluntary acceptance of the refuges and provisions of financial help to the countries that are the most affected by the migration crisis. This alternative is non obligatory which does not guarantee that countries with the insufficient financial and personnel resources will get the necessary means. This alternative solution could result in no change of the functioning where every country would take care of the national issues, regardless of the proposals and directives from the European Commissions. This alternative pros lie in the fact that it would be better accepted by the countries that are currently opposing of taking in the refugees. A con of the alternative is that it could result in the same situation seen today, where nations are acting based on their national policies and where the recommendations and resolutions of the European Commission and other institutions are not being implemented. This could also result in the further nonfunctioning of the Schengen system where every country in the light of no common agreement could impose national border controls. The alternative to the policy could also be enhanced cooperation with the neighboring countries and countries of migrants’ origin that would prevent the migrant to go to the way towards Europe. This alternative would be the best if it could be implemented. With the war and insecurity continuing in the MENA region the migrations are almost impossible to stop since the core reasons for their beginning have not been eliminated. The migration could be stopped with the stopping the war in Syria and other countries. The situation and conflicts are complicated and their solution cannot come in a short period of time that is why the alternatives must be considered. The enhance cooperation with the neighboring countries of the European Union and agreements with the Middle Eastern countries, the financial assistance could be provided in order to decrease the migration flux into Europe. The enhanced cooperation with the Gulf countries and persuade them to take in more refugees and migrants. There are possibilities of decreasing the number of migrants, but there are downsizes. The migration crisis would just be stopped before the European Union, but the migrants would remain in the bad and inappropriate conditions. The alternative to the policy could be the partial implementation of the recommended policy, such as fighting the smuggling at sea. The pros of the alternative could result in more saved lives, but would not resolve other issues in the migration area. The best possible solution is the implementation of the European Commission and European Parliament recommendations and implementation of the common policy by implementing the common asylum system and overall cooperation on all areas among member countries. The policy solution needs to incorporate different specter in order to handle the complex migration crisis. Only the comprehensive and common solution can help better tackle the issues the migrants are confronted on the way to the Europe and in Europe. The gap between the theory and practice must be decreased. European Union has a legal and moral duty to accepted people that should be under the international protection and must start to implement the recommendations that have already been set out on paper, but the reality is far from the official documents and that is why the creation of the Special Committee is needed. Time is of essence and the solutions must be provided as soon as possible.
4. Work cited
Blunt, Mitch. How to Solve Europe’s Migration crisis. Politico. 2016. Web. 16 Apr 2016. <http://www.politico.eu/article/solve-migration-crisis-europe-schengen/>
European Commission. A European Agenda on Migration, 2015. Web. 16 Ap. 2016. < http://ec.europa.eu/lietuva/documents/power_pointai/communication_on_the_europea n_agenda_on_migration_en.pdf>
European Parliament. Rules of Procedure. 2014. Web. 16 Apr 2016. <http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sipade/rulesleg8/Rulesleg8.EN.pdf>
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2015 UNHCR Regional Operations Profile – Middle East and North Africa (MENA). 2015.Web. 16 Apr 2016. < http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a02db416.html>.