external borders of the EU – in far better alignment with Article 80 TFEU.”21 (Emphasis added.) The above statements portray relocation as an overly-bureaucratic, resource-wasting procedure. In November 2017, the Commission presented a staff working document22 on Best practices on the implementation of the hotspot approach. None of the recommendations were new, no structural change in the concept was foreseen. This would not only mean a major investment into building detention capacity, but would also entail the observation of a number of procedural aspects. Most importantly, the host Member State would need to fulfil its obligations under the EU acquis on restriction of movement of asylum seekers (until their claim is rejected by a final instance) while at the same time complying with the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights. This would mean a massive burden on administrative and judicial bodies.
the system would still function properly. However, managing thousands of arrivals per day, would clearly be out of the question. The main problem with the relocation concept was that it was a bad compromise: neither soft, nor hard enough. Since iden-tification and registration was a pre-requisite of the transfers under relocation, this already constituted an obligation of a personal interview. Additional questions on family ties in the EU, reasons of flight, vulnerability and integration skills turned it into a quasi in-merit interview, with all of its time consuming elements. At the same time, it did not result in a full refugee status determination: upon arrival to the Member State of relocation, the asylum procedure started anew. Duplication and a waste of time and resources, as the EP rightfully puts it. Either of the two alternative solutions would have been better:
1. A fully fledged asylum interview performed by experts of the Member State of relocation (analogic to resettlement selection missions in third countries). It is time consuming, but reduces security concerns and also ensures adequate case processing capacity.
2. A very basic registration, perhaps limited to country of origin credibility tests and im-mediate transfer to Member State of relocation. This would have ensured a fast response and would have avoided hold-ups at the preparation for submission of cases.
The way suggested above by the EP LIBE Committee (permanent relocation mech-anism) would not solve the real issues. Even if a political consensus is reached on a per-manent allocation mechanism (which does not seem to have had any progress in the last 2 years), the new concept is still based on a presumption that the persons arriving, would not take the first chance at secondary movement. There are various ways of controlling the movement of persons:
A. Re-introducing border control. One of the greatest achievements of the EU project is the free movement area and completely giving this up would be a political suicide. Even having a full traceability of the movement of persons enjoying international protection would not change the picture. In the area of free-movement once you are in, you are in. Unless full border control is re-established (which does not seem to be working well in Calais), and physical borders are built up, there would be no way of controlling people’s movement. Even doing so, what would be the sanction for a refugee who tries to change his or her residence without permission? If he/she is transported back, they can easily take the next bus/train/
car etc. Attempts at unauthorised secondary movement do not affect the legal status of the persons; he or she will not be deported to the country of origin. Finally, the financial impli-cations of reintroducing systematic border controls go without saying.
B. Establishing reporting obligations (e.g. once a week at a police station). Reporting obli-gations would be a stigmatizing and counterproductive practice in the integration process.
And again: the lack of consequences – no Member State authority would issue an arrest warrant for a Syrian unaccompanied minor who has failed to report. The administrative burden on police forces to follow all reporting and alert all Member States for a fugitive are disproportionate.
C. Sanctions (economic and administrative). Sanctions of an administrative or economical nature can only be effective to the extent that they impose a clear disadvantage on the refu-gee, which would effectively trigger him or her to seek ways to avoid them. At present, the sanctions are limited to granting access to social benefits in one single Member State (of relocation) and denying them in all others (see European Council decisions on relocation).
If beneficiaries of international protection are placed against their will in a Member State where economic opportunities are lower than in their preferred Member State of destination, where they have no family ties or friends, nor a migrant community, where a language bar-rier exists, these sanctions will eventually fail. The carrot-stick approach would not bring any results. The intra-EU mobility driving force, which brings EU citizens to seek better economical options in other Member States is even stronger with people who have no roots in any of the EU Member States. Family and language will always overwrite an administra-tive decision for people coming from failed states and – on many occasions – persecution of state authorities. Their mentality will not change overnight, trust towards state institutions will build slowly. To deter them from unauthorised secondary movement, there would need to be no access to the state benefits and the labour market outside the country of relocation, including to the illegal labour market. This would mean state control increased to a level beyond the capacity of authorities in all Member States. The same applies for all social services: children not having access to school, no access to medical care etc. Even if this would be implemented with utmost strictness, its effect is questionable. People would still follow their preferences and struggle in the limbo. We would build up a marginalized group of people who would rather be homeless in their chosen country and create a perfect cradle for first and second generation extremism in the heart of Europe. There are many ways to influence the movement of persons. Most of the above discussed require a disproportionate financial and administrative investment which is the opposite of the desired cost-effective approach, and in the long run would not provide for a rational solution.
D. Granting free movement within time (e.g. residence in their country of destination in 3 years). The idea of establishing a certain deadline for settling down and attending inte-gration courses in the Member State of relocation, after which secondary movement is legal and the acquired benefits are kept and transformed in a new country of residence, can be an idea to explore on the long run. However, without proper sanctions, which can actually deter irregular movement incentives, this would still not be a game changer. The short term benefits of leaving the relocation country must be very low. Experience shows that many people would even take the risk of homelessness to reach their destination, therefore much bigger effort is needed for objective information provision to this target group. Solution is to be found in those cases where beneficiaries would eventually return to the Member State of relocation after seeing that there is no Canaan waiting for them in their countries of desire.
E. Financial incentives. Financial incentives are to be considered an effective tool if certain conditions are met. If the persons granted international protection are forced to leave the accommodation centres without enough financial means to manage their own accommo-dation and sustain their living, there will be no successful integration and it will only lead to secondary movement. But how to determine the necessary financial means? How can it be ensured that the state subsidy will not actually keep people back from finding a job?
This balance is very difficult to achieve. There are significant differences already in the economic opportunities within certain regions of a Member State, and on an even higher scale, among the Member States themselves. The financial driven intra-EU migration flow does not only affect the EU citizens. If one can buy a bus ticket for EUR 50 and cross a few borders in order to gain a salary 5 times higher, many would take the opportunity.
This is rational enough. And as it has been already mentioned above, for beneficiaries of international protection who have zero ties with the country of relocation (neither family ties, nor language, nor cultural ties), there is no anchor to keep them from moving on. The possibility of ending up in limbo, the risk of homelessness and extremely low quality of life is relative for someone running from war and persecution, and in some cases already vegetating for years in refugee camps. This needs to be balanced with a positive element:
providing a realistic, sustainable opportunity to start a new life. In the Member States where there is no significant migrant community, this task is even harder. Trust is much easier gained if one has a mentor of the same cultural background who already made it, and became an example of successful integration. The best chance for a pilot project is to have a critical number of people of the same origin (e.g. Eritreans tend to move together in the perilous journey through Libya and they keep a strong cohesion even upon arrival to Europe), settled within a close geographical space to ensure stability and networking, while keeping enough proximity to ensure that interaction with the local population is speeding up the integration. Similarly to the experience with humanitarian aid projects, careful assessment should be given to the fact, that positive discrimination and financial aid channelled only to beneficiaries of international protection is usually fuelling tension in the local community. Therefore, priority should be given to mixed enterprises, small businesses which improve the economical situation of all local residents including citizens of the Member State of relocation. Naturally, since these projects would target economically less competitive regions, they would be very resource- demanding. The debate on how to tackle migration, which has been dividing European States seems to be solely focused on how to stop and manage migration outside, or at the border. However, there seems to be an agreement on the necessity to integrate the beneficiaries of international protection.
Should the political debate shift from the current deadlock, this might create the necessary momentum to launch these pilot projects in those countries, where at the moment discus-sion is limited to apocalyptic vidiscus-sions of Europe running into suicide. We should not forget the positive examples of integration. Since the people who have protection status will stay with us, we have no other option but to include them into our communities and make sure that their potential is fully utilized. This is in their best interest, and also in ours, since the alternative is the creation of parallel societies. However, this also means that the political short-sightedness needs to be overcome and the scenario to maintain a hostile anti-refugee environment at home in order to make people leave and then watch from the side-lines how other Member States struggle with integration challenges needs to end. The public, and therefore governments will only be ready to embrace these ideas, once they feel involved in the process and once assurances are given that the number of arrivals will be manageable, and not a distant ivory tower forcing quotas without upper limitations. Success stories with small numbers are desperately needed first to regain public trust in the capabilities of the European melting pot (in a good sense), without the sword of Damocles (repetition of the influx in 2015) hanging in the air.