Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

 Introduction

The adoption of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum by the twenty-seven EU member States creates a brutal process of selection determining who will be accepted and who will be rejected

Migratory policies in Europe in this year of 2024 are a sombre picture. The Mediterranean remains a deadly passage for the thousands of people who attempt to reach the European coastlines by sea, while crossing the Channel to the UK can be just as deadly. The Atlantic is also braved daily by candidates for migration and asylum from Africa trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands. On 10 April 2024, the European Union, which generates this deadly situation, took another step towards what is known as “necropolitics”, The adoption of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum [1] by the twenty-seven EU member States creates a brutal process of selection determining who will be accepted and who will be rejected. Following the vote by the EU Parliament and approval by the EU Council, the text will be applicable in 2026. This Pact strengthens a policy centred on closed borders, erecting barriers against so-called “irregular” immigration and creating even greater dangers for new arrivals [2] to face throughout their voyage. The text provides for more repressive controls over arrival in the EU as well as a system of solidarity between member states dealing with asylum seekers, while keeping the Dublin system [3] in place. This so-called “managing of migratory flows” encourages fantasies about immigration perceived as a threat to the integrity and security of European countries, and provides a fertile breeding ground for racist policies originating with the extreme Right. With the approach of European parliamentary elections (in June 2024), the adoption of this Pact represents a strategic turning point for voters as they go to the polls to take a stand regarding the direction their continent should take with regard to the issue of migration.

 The failure of Europe’s migratory policy

We should refer to a crisis of reception rather than a crisis of migration

Major population movements were triggered in 2014-2015 by the civil war in Syria, The European countries have chosen to adopt the rhetoric of a “migratory crisis.” [4]With the adoption of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, negotiations for which began in September 2020, the EU has taken on the role of being the regulator of what is referred to as “irregular” migration. This so-called “migratory crisis” is in fact a crisis of reception in Europe. [5] In a series of highly publicized verdicts, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has issued a series of severe reprimands to member States for their inhuman practices toward new arrivals seeking international protection. In its sanctions against degrading treatment, [6] confinement in detention centres [7] and clear failures to guarantee adequate protection to asylum seekers, [8] the ECHR underscores the ongoing distress that confronts new arrivals in Europe and points up failures to apply international law. With increasing mortality and thousands of persons lost in the Mediterranean in 2023, [9] the EU’s management of migratory policies has been the object of severe criticisms. The most recent report by the Border Violence Monitoring Network [10] reveals many proofs of the involvement or the complicity of Frontex [11] in failures to assist persons in danger at sea. We could also cite the ominous example of Fabrice Leggeri, the former Executive Director of Frontex, who is now Number 3 on the list of the extreme-Right Rassemblement National (RN) party in France. This multiplication of incidents reveals the absence of an institutional response to the inhuman conditions of reception in Europe. This shameful record demands an urgent re-examination of the way in which Europe treats those who seek refuge, safety and social and economic security on its shores.

Cast as a rampart against the failure of the Dublin policy, the new Pact mainly comprises new legislation aimed at establishing “a mechanism for dealing with mass influxes and irregular arrivals of third-country nationals in a Member State.” [12] Concretely, the Pact sets up a system for fast-tracking asylum requests, with a compulsory “border procedure” for determining their validity. [13] The Pact is aimed at facilitating the return of persons judged to be unfit to receive international protection. The Eurodac database, which uses fingerprint identification of new arrivals in order to determine whether a person has already been registered in another EU member State in keeping with the provisions of the Dublin Regulation, will now be used more broadly to identify migrating persons. Eurodac will enable sharing of biometric data between authorities in charge of maintaining order, facilitating the identification of so-called “irregular” migration and justifying measures of detention or exclusion. [14] The reform calls for lowering the age at which data may be collected on an individual from 14 to 6, the possibility of using force as a measure of last resort to require persons to submit to having their biometric data collected and the possibility of detaining children in order for the data to be collected. [15] This new approach develops European migratory policy based not on the reception, but rather on the criminalization of migrating persons. [16]

This so-called “solidarity” looks more like a collective approach against immigration

A pact for greater solidarity and sharing of responsibilities? In the text of the Pact, the use of the notion of “solidarity” between member states takes on special significance.

Rather than a means of encouraging assistance in the Mediterranean or cooperation to encourage assistance, reception and social justice, this “solidarity” looks more like a collective approach against immigration.

The aim is to collectivize mechanisms of surveillance at the borders and strengthen infrastructure for border management (building walls, installing video surveillance, laying barbed wire) within the EU. [17] Finally, under this process of “sharing responsibilities,” the Pact authorizes financial contributions to projects for limiting immigration in third-party countries. That translates into more agreements with border States like Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey, who agree to play the role of border police in exchange for large financial subsidies. [18] One example: since 2018, Italy has had a transfer-of-jurisdiction agreement with the coast guard in Libya, under which the latter is under obligation to designate a safe harbour for vessels in distress. This despite the fact that the expression “Libyan Hell” has become sadly familiar as a description of the “safe” conditions persons in exile find themselves facing: rape, torture, detention and slavery. [19] Sophie Beau, Director of SOS MÉDITERRANÉE France, describes how the Libyan coast guard fired on the humanitarian ship Ocean Viking as it attempted to assist shipwrecked migrants. Another example is the agreement signed in May 2024 between the EU and Lebanon, which implements measures for keeping Syrian exiles from leaving for Europe in exchange for a billion euros. [20] The solidarity demonstrated by the Pact’s adoption is clearly against the “migratory threat” – that is, irregular immigration.

The EU recently reiterated its memorandum of understanding with Tunisia, disbursing financial support amounting to 150 million euros. [21] This commitment comprises five pillars, one of which, “Migration and Mobility,” aims at “effective border management - and the development of a system for the identification and return of irregular migrants already present in Tunisia to their countries of origin.” [22] Tunisia has announced that it has intercepted 21,545 migrating persons as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean to Italy from its coast between January and April 2024. [23] At the same time, several international investigations have revealed that the EU supports clandestine operations in North African countries [24] whose goal is to arrest individuals travelling toward Europe in Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia. The authorities there are paid by the EU to detain these people for transfer into the desert or to remote areas to prevent them from requesting asylum at entry points into Europe. Once there, they are abandoned without any assistance whatsoever, no water or food, exposed to risks of kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and in many cases, death. [25] Others are taken to border zones where, according to witnesses, they are sold by the authorities to human traffickers and gangs who torture them to extract ransoms. Investigations reveal that Europe knowingly finances, and in certain cases directly takes part in systematic detentions and expulsions based on racist criteria targeting Black communities in the three North African countries. [26] These investigations reveal not only that Brussels has had knowledge of this system of massive deportations and abuses for years, but also that it is supported with funds, vehicles, equipment, information and security forces supplied by the EU and European countries. [27]

 Deciding who can come in or deciding whom to document?

The Pact authorizes financial contributions to projects aimed at limiting immigration from third-party countries. That translates into more agreements with border States like Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey, who, in exchange for lavish financial rewards, agree to play the role of border police.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared that “Europeans will decide who comes to the EU and who can stay, not the smugglers.” [28] The choice of who can cross the borders of the EU and who is refused access is the result of a political decision to engage in a form of management that can only be referred to as necropolitics. For in fact the consequences for whomever is refused access can be radical: kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and death. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), of the 11,889 persons who arrived in Greece in 2024, 48.8% were from Afghanistan and 13.8% from Syria, while less than 5% were from countries such as Eritrea, Palestine, Yemen, Sudan and Ethiopia, among others. [29] What these countries all have in common is that they are facing crisis situations – civil war, major political instability, conflicts or humanitarian crises – which result in movements of persons in search of more liveable social and economic conditions. Using political power to dictate who will be allowed to enter and who will be refused entry is evidence of a political logic based on inequality. The majority of the persons who cross Europe’s borders irregularly come from countries that were once colonized. The colonial history of these countries has everything to do with current dependencies on the former imperialist countries. That relation of dependency has contributed greatly to the enrichment of the nations of the North, and Europe in particular. Today, the global system of international economic relations maintains a new form of domination, and in fact of imperialism. Debt, in particular, remains an instrument of domination of the Global South by the North. Through institutions like the IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org and the World Bank World Bank
WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.

It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :

1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;

2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;

3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.

As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.

, it perpetuates a system of economic domination in exchange for loans for repaying old and even historic debts. The attendant political instability and lack of social structures for guaranteeing the safety and subsistence of a large part of the population of numerous countries of the Global South results in major population movements. [30]

In the context of this necropolitics, the EU exercises its authority by adopting policies that discriminate between individuals on the basis of their origin. This tendency is especially visible in the new Pact, under which decisions to admit or to reject new arrivals are influenced by their nationality or region of origin. In practice, that takes the form of racist European migratory policies which favour nationals of countries considered to be economically or politically stable, whilst people from regions in crisis are seen as “irregular” immigrants. What is more, subjected to an asylum process that has become more and more complex in the countries of Europe, they must overcome administrative obstacles in order to file a request for protection that is nominally guaranteed them under international law. Recently, several European States have adopted new national laws that make a mockery of any notion of a humane policy regarding the reception of migrants, one example being France’s law on asylum and migration of December 2023. [31] Millions of persons in Europe are in exile. In the 1960s and 70s, Europe, and in particular former colonial powers like France and the UK, organized massive arrivals of individuals from their former colonies in order to exploit their cheap labour for rebuilding in the wake of the War. The use of labour coming largely from formerly colonized countries amounts to the exploitation and domination of a part of that population. Whereas Frantz Fanon, in his Les Damnés de la Terre (The Wretched of the Earth), had dealt mainly with colonialism and the psychological effects of oppression on colonized peoples, Achille Mbembe adapts Fanon’s phrase to “The Wretched of the Sea” who seek refuge in Europe only to in fact find hunger. Today, austerity policies have dampened hopes for a decent life in Europe. With voters feeling the effects of the successive economic crises European countries have undergone over the past thirty years, immigration is accused of being, in part, responsible for the “high cost” of social policies. The new approach to management of migratory policy has had a major impact on the right to asylum in the EU States, accompanied by the rise of nationalist rhetoric that focuses more and more on the notion that national borders are ramparts against insecurity and the idea of a “tidal wave” of irregular immigration. [32]

Decisions to admit or to reject new arrivals are influenced by their nationality or region of origin

And yet undocumented persons continue to play a major role in our European economies. For example, the Green Transition, which calls for carbon-free vehicles by 2030, strongly reinforces the exploitation of undocumented persons. Hungary has the ambition of being the major producer of batteries for electric vehicles. [33] To fulfil that ambition, Hungary is facilitating the arrival of undocumented migrants to produce the batteries. [34] Whereas Giorgia Meloni co-operates with the Tunisian authorities to strengthen maritime border controls to prevent new arrivals from reaching Italy’s shores, [35] large landowners in Italy’s South continue to profit Profit The positive gain yielded from a company’s activity. Net profit is profit after tax. Distributable profit is the part of the net profit which can be distributed to the shareholders. from cheap agricultural labour. [36] Europe, with the barriers it has constructed against the rest of the world – and principally the countries of the Global South –, is often referred to as “Fortress Europe.” Under the pretext of “management of the migration crisis,” the EU resorts to a form of regulation that seems to respond to the fluctuating requirements of the worldwide market. [37] The Pact, concentrated more on management of consequences than on the implementation of structural solutions for reducing the number of victims, is characteristic of current migratory policies and their racist, necropolitical nature. ’In today’s globalized economy focused on over-exploitation, a person’s mobility or lack thereof is determined by their location along the long value chains our society now depends on.. [38] In that context, the question of borders becomes crucial. Europe’s necropolitics reflects a commercial logic wherein Fortress Europe keeps its labour outside the EU, or else inside Europe, but under deplorable conditions.

 Conclusion

The Pact on Asylum and Immigration marks a decisive turning point, consolidating an approach centred on the borders and reinforcing obstacles placed in the path of new arrivals who are considered “irregular.” Whereas the EU claims that it exercises control over migratory flows to guarantee the safety and integrity of its members, the Pact in fact reveals a necropolitical orientation in which selection of new arrivals is dictated by criteria inherited from a colonial system. The foundations of this policy lie in a globalized economic context in which inequalities between workers who are citizens of major economic powers and those in the periphery define the dynamics of worldwide value chains. Fortress Europe emerges as a symbol of this selective management of labour, favouring nationals of countries considered to be politically or economically stable (who often happen to be white) whilst excluding or marginalizing those from regions in conflict or in crisis (who are often non-white). Behind this façade of regulation is a darker reality. Current migratory policies often show themselves to be superficial responses, focused on the racist anxieties stirred up by parties of the extreme Right against a part of the population rather than on the root causes of migration, especially in the context of the European parliamentary elections in June 2024. This rhetoric based on fear is to a large extent created and exploited by parties of the extreme Right. In a climate in which the extreme Right is rapidly gaining acceptability, it is crucial to re-centre the debate on disarmament of the borders and the reception of persons in exile.

That requires, above all, recognizing the humanity of the individuals who face the realities of the new Pact and the sharp edges of migratory policies that threaten not only their dignity but their life.