He pointed to the rate of failed asylum seekers leaving the camp, which recent Eurostat figures put at around 27 percent. “We have to give people the feeling that we have control over what is happening,” he said.
Under the agreement, countries will be allowed to send people who have been ordered to leave the EU to so-called “return centres” outside the bloc – an option that several EU countries are already exploring, but which civil society groups warn could open the door to further violence and human rights abuses.
The text also introduces stricter rules for dealing with people considered a security threat; home search possibilities; prolonged detention; entry ban; and punishment for those who do not cooperate.
“For many years, Europe sent the worst message: even if you don’t have the right to stay, the chances were high that nothing will happen. That era is ending. If you don’t have the right to stay in Europe, you have to leave,” French MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, who represented the central European People’s Party in the talks, said in a statement.
Parliament entered the negotiations with a position supported by the EPP, the European Conservatives and the right-wing Reformists and the right-wing Patriots and European Independent States groups, despite opposition from members of parliament in the liberal and left-wing groups.
Monday’s agreement introduces a “legal warehouse that serves xenophobic ideology,” Greens negotiator Mélissa Camara said in comments. A French MEP blasted the text allowing stops outside the European Union, the detention of children, and “domestic visits based on ICE practices,” referring to the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
