European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at her State of the Union address on Wednesday (16 September) will reportedly announce new migrant-busting plans — possibly even allowing EU states to suspend asylum whenever a large number of people arrive at a border.
If true, it would likely be a further crack in efforts to enforce the ban on pushbacks, the illegal practice whereby people are forced to return to a country where they face any number of dangers.
“I think what we’re seeing is quite concerted efforts by the states to target that principle, to erode it, to undermine it, and in some cases to destroy it,” says Catherine Woollard, an adjunct professor in law at the Brussels School of Governance.
Despite the drop in applications and arrivals, the EU remains transfixed on curbing what it believes is an existential crisis that could possibly unravel the border-free Schengen zone and plummet the union into oblivion.
With the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) winning the regional election in Saxony-Anhalt, the far-right eyeing the French presidency next year and Italy’s Georgi Meloni also facing a general election in 2027, the politics surrounding migration has once again tossed a spanner into the law-making machinery of the European Union.
