The new system reinforces controls at external borders, establishes accelerated procedures for resolving certain asylum applications and facilitates the return of those who do not obtain authorization to remain in Europe. It also deepens cooperation with countries of origin and transit to curb arrivals before they reach European territory. CEAR and other organizations fear that this new architecture will reduce the guarantees for people seeking protection and will turn borders into spaces where rights are weakened precisely for those who need them most. (CEAR)
Spain has announced that it will apply the Pact with a guarantor approach respectful of the rights of migrants and international protection applicants. The Spanish Government has also expressed its rejection of the creation of return centers in third countries, a possibility that it considers surrounded by serious legal and proportionality doubts. It is a position that deserves to be highlighted in a European context that is moving, overall, toward increasingly restrictive policies. (Ministry of Interior)
But perhaps the most important question is not only how this new system will function, but what is happening to us as a society that we have reached this point.
Europe was not born solely as a common market. It also emerged from the ashes of a terrible war and from the conviction that there were limits that humanity should never cross again. In those years the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was also born, sustained by an idea as simple as it was revolutionary: all human beings possess the same dignity and rights that do not depend on their nationality, their wealth, their religion or the usefulness they may have for others.
Almost eighty years later, that spirit seems to be weakening. We have become accustomed to distinguishing between people who deserve protection and those who are inconvenient; between those who can move freely and those who must be detained; between victims who move us and those whose suffering barely lasts a few seconds in the news.
Human rights rarely disappear overnight. They slowly erode. First one exception is accepted because the situation is difficult. Then another because there is an emergency. Later an extraordinary measure is justified because public opinion is tired or because populist discourse promises easy solutions to enormously complex problems. And so, almost without realizing it, what one day we considered unacceptable begins to seem normal to us.
This drift does not only affect migration policies. International law is going through one of its most fragile moments and the institutions created to protect it show worrying weakness. The UN, also born from the tragedy of World War II, watches too often as its resolutions are ignored and its calls go unheeded. Its own secretary general, António Guterres, has warned this year that international cooperation is eroding and that international law is being trampled. Political paralysis is compounded by a serious financial crisis that further limits the United Nations’ capacity to act. (United Nations)
The risk is enormous. When common rules lose force, a freer world does not appear, but a world in which those with more power impose themselves. When cooperation is replaced by national selfishness, when each country proclaims that only its own come first and when complex problems are answered with simple slogans, the weakest are always the first to pay the consequences.
In this context, the voice of the European Church has been especially clear. The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union has warned that migration policy raises a question much deeper than border management: what kind of Europe do we want to build. The bishops recall that human dignity is inviolable and that solidarity among peoples cannot be considered a luxury for times of abundance. Security and solidarity, they insist, are not incompatible principles. (Religión Digital)
Leo XIV has also referred directly to the new European Pact. The Pope has recalled that behind each migrant person there are reasons that we all too often prefer not to see: wars, violence, persecution and conflicts. Faced with the temptation to push the problem out of our sight, he has asked to examine each situation and, above all, to treat people with respect, as people. (Vatican News)
It is an elementary expression, but perhaps for that very reason necessary. Before migrant, refugee, undocumented or asylum seeker, there is a person. A story. A family. A fear. A hope. Someone who has left their home behind and who probably would not have undertaken a dangerous journey if they had found security and a future in their own country.
History has taught us that difficult times can bring out the best in societies, but also their deepest fears. Populism grows when it succeeds in pointing to someone as guilty of our problems. Selfishness becomes acceptable when it is disguised as self-defense. And indifference takes hold when we stop looking at the concrete face of those who suffer.
Beyond the debate about borders and asylum and about how Europe processes applications, something much more profound is at stake: whether we still truly believe in the universality of human rights. Europe still has time to remember where it comes from. To recover that conviction born amid the ruins of a war: that force without law leads to barbarism and that human dignity does not depend on the place where a person was born.
Perhaps hope, at this moment, consists precisely in not giving in. In continuing to remember that laws can be changed, that institutions can be strengthened and that peoples can choose solidarity over fear. Because defending the rights of those who arrive does not weaken our societies. On the contrary: it reminds us who we want to be.
Inma Calvo Torrejón
Sources consulted
CEAR — European States initiate a new common migration policy that threatens the rights of the migrant and refugee population
El País — The European Union activates the new migration pact with more controls and accelerated expulsions
Ministry of Interior — Spain begins the implementation of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum
Religión Digital — The bishops of COMECE on European migration policy
Vatican News — Leo XIV on the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum
United Nations — António Guterres on the weakening of international law and cooperation