Germany’s interior minister has hosted five of his European counterparts to discuss ways of tightening the region’s asylum rules, as his country deported 81 Afghans to their Taliban-controlled homeland.
The European Union’s immigration system needed to be “tougher and stricter”, Minister Alexander Dobrindt said after Friday’s meeting in southern Germany with the interior ministers of France, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark, as well as EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner.
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The cohort issued a five-page communique on their aims, which included the establishment of “return hubs” for holding people outside the EU, enabling asylum procedures in third countries, and allowing deportations to Afghanistan and Syria as standard practice.
All measures would require approval from Brussels.
“When we analyse what has been agreed here, it’s lofty ambitions, but not much detail about how they intend to pursue what’s in these five pages,” said Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin.
Ministers, he said, had talked about “the sorts of things that they agree on, but they know they can’t implement them themselves as unilateral decisions.”
Speaking after the meeting, Dobrindt said, “We wanted to send a signal that Germany is no longer sitting in the brakeman’s cab on migration issues in Europe, but is in the locomotive.”
Hours before the meeting, Germany demonstrated just how serious it was about cracking down on migration by sending 81 Afghan nationals back to their homeland, prompting an outcry from rights organisations.
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Amnesty International criticised the deportations, saying the situation in Afghanistan was “catastrophic” and that “extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture are commonplace”.
Europe’s top economy had stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban movement’s return to power in 2021.
But Berlin resumed expulsions last year when the previous government of Olaf Scholz expelled 28 convicted Afghans.
Current Chancellor Friedrich Merz defended the expulsions of the 81 Afghan men, saying he was “grateful” to be able to deliver on promises made when entering government in May.
None of those deported “had a residence status any more. All asylum applications were legally rejected without further legal recourse”, he said at a news conference.
Bavaria state’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said 15 of the deported Afghans had been incarcerated for crimes, including murder and manslaughter, sexual offences and property crimes.
The state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said 13 Afghans deported from there had been jailed for crimes including homicide, bodily harm, drug offences and serious arson.
In the wake of the announcement, the United Nations said no one should be sent back to Afghanistan, whatever their status.
The UN human rights commissioner called for an “immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers”, highlighting the risks faced by returnees.
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