Addressing statelessness under the EU’s Asylum & Migration Pact

Guest blog by: Chris Nash, Director, European Network on Statelessness 

Please be aware that this article is a guest contribution and does not necessarily reflect the view of Tineke Strik or GroenLinks.

The European Network on Statelessness is a civil society alliance of over 170 members in 41 countries committed to ending statelessness and ensuring that the rights of people living in Europe without a nationality are protected.

Earlier this year, the European Network on Statelessness published its detailed analysis of the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration. Since then we have held multiple meetings with MEPs, European Commission officials and Member State representatives in order to highlight our key recommendations.

Our commentary, released in January, focuses on the impact the proposals set out by the European Commission would have on the fundamental rights of stateless migrants and refugees and makes concrete recommendations for a way forward. To say that many of the Pact proposals are controversial would be stating the obvious, and we stand in solidarity with our sister networks in seeking to hold the EU to account on its obligations in this area. As we outline, statelessness must be integral to the Pact negotiations and wider CEAS reform.

Why is statelessness so relevant to Europe’s refugee response?

We know from our work with our members and partners that whether someone is stateless impacts on their migration journey in innumerable ways. And yet, the Pact makes no mention of the rights of stateless people, nor does it provide any clarity on how to respond to the specific protection challenges faced by stateless refugees and migrants. The existing EU asylum and migration acquis contains no reference to the rights due to stateless people under international law, so perhaps we should not have been surprised by the Pact’s blind spot in this area, despite previous dedicated European Council Conclusions on Statelessness.

While the causes and consequences of statelessness may be complex, the law and policy solutions are simple and achievable. Stateless refugees and migrants in Europe need recognition, rights, and routes to resolving their statelessness. What they face currently is invisibility and prolonged irregularity. It is now time to put the issue of statelessness firmly on the EU’s asylum and migration agenda and the Pact provides a key opportunity to do so.

We know that over 3% of asylum applicants to the EU are registered as stateless or ‘of unknown nationality’. However, the true figure is likely much higher given the lack of tools to identify and record statelessness at Europe’s borders. There is no mechanism to register statelessness on arrival so stateless refugees and migrants are often wrongly ‘assigned’ a nationality by officials based on their country of origin or the languages they speak. Many more people from countries where discriminatory laws, state succession, nationality stripping, or protracted displacement  - meaning they have lost or never acquired a nationality - are invisible in the statistics. We know of people from Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and the former Soviet Union, among many others, who have struggled for years to have their statelessness recognised by authorities in Europe. Whether someone is stateless not only impacts on asylum decision-making, but also on the nationality rights of their children, as well as on access to related procedures like family reunification or resettlement, not to mention inclusion or the possibility of return.

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Photo: Syrian Kurdish refugees take ferry to Athens; © UNHCR/Andrew McConnell

 

Growing momentum but now is the time for action

Over the last five years, we have been working with our members to call out the invisibility of statelessness in the EU’s response to migration and refugees. Thanks to research, campaigns, and sympathetic MEPs, practitioners, and migrant and refugee communities, many of you among them, awareness has undoubtedly grown. Stateless people have been heard in the European Parliament, the Council has adopted Conclusions on Statelessness, the European Migration Network has established a Statelessness Platform, parliamentarians have championed the issue, and key EU agencies such as FRA, EASO, and Frontex have integrated statelessness into aspects of their work.

Nevertheless,EU legislation is still silent on stateless migrants and refugees, and they are still largely invisible in the debates that affect their lives. We recognise how difficult it is to change EU law and policy, as evidenced by current slow and difficult progress on the Pact package as a whole, but the impact of doing nothing on statelessness has been laid bare by a growing movement for change. The EU’s reluctance to legislate on this issue is now untenable. Now is the time for change and we are ready to work with the EU - and all stakeholders - to change this.

 

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Photo: Greece. Accommodation scheme transfers Palestinian-Syrian family from residential container to Athens apartment; © UNHCR/Alfredo D'Amato

 

Our proposed recommendations and amendments to the Pact

Our position paper on the Pact sets out concrete proposals for how to achieve a more harmonised and horizontal approach to statelessness across EU asylum and migration acquis. We propose simple solutions to improve identification and recording of statelessness, referral to appropriate determination procedures (including dedicated Statelessness Determination Procedures - SDPs), access to protection, and measures to support integration and inclusion. Through our multiple recommendations and proposed amendments to the various Pact instruments, we set out how to end harmful cycles of criminalisation, detention, and enforced destitution that many stateless people in Europe currently face.

 

Put simply, we outline what is needed to realise the rights that stateless people, including children, are already due under international law.

This includes proposing:

  • A clear reference to the 1954 Convention and the definition of a stateless person in all Pact instruments;
  • a requirement to screen for and record ‘initial indications of statelessness’ at the border and refer people to appropriate determination procedures (including SDPs);
  • integrating the rights of stateless people into guidance on fundamental rights monitoring;
  • reducing the length of time stateless status holders must wait for a long-term residence permit in line with those holding other forms of international protection;
  • mainstreaming statelessness in the work of the Migration Preparedness and Crisis Network and including a subsection on statelessness in the Commission’s Migration Management Reports;
  • facilitating data collection on statelessness under Eurodac and in EU databases;
  • exempting stateless people from return sponsorship, ensuring statelessness-related barriers to return are acknowledged and that referrals are made to SDPs from return procedures;
  • mainstreaming statelessness across the work of the EU Asylum Agency.

As well as highlighting where reform to improve the protection of stateless people is urgently required, our analysis also aims to counter residual questions about relevance or competency often mistakenly put forward as stumbling blocks on the path to progress.

 

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Photo: Yazidi Kurdish family in south-eastern Turkey shares one room with 16 members of extended family © Photo credit: Caroline Gluck/EU/ECHO

Eradicating statelessness – the way forward

We are not questioning that EU action must go hand-in-hand with a concerted effort by all Member States to uphold their international obligations, facilitate naturalisation and ensure their nationality laws prevent new cases of statelessness arising. We developed our Statelessness Index – the first online database that enables instant comparison of law, policy and practice on statelessness in 27 European countries – precisely as a tool to equip us to monitor and benchmark progress, and work with our members at country level to ensure that States are meeting their international obligations towards stateless people.

But equally the Pact draws into focus how the EU lacks a holistic strategy and is lagging behind other regions of the world in global efforts to eradicate statelessness. Europe can no longer ignore the need to harmonise its approach to stateless refugees and migrants if it is to remain credible as a bastion of rule of law and human rights. Stateless people and affected communities must be central to these efforts, and later this year we will launch a new region-wide campaign aimed at building support for the rights of stateless refugees in Europe. We want to ensure our work complements and supports wider advocacy on CEAS reform. We therefore stand ready to support, collaborate and facilitate this, working together with our members and all actors to make this vision a reality.

 

For further information:

European Network on Statelessness, Statelessness and the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration: Analysis and Recommendations, January 2021

European Network on Statelessness, Stateless Journeys knowledge hub

European Network on Statelessness, Statelessness Index

European Network on Statelessness, Statelessness Case Law Database

European Network on Statelessness, No child should be stateless: Ensuring the right to a nationality for children in migration in Europe, April 2020

European Network on Statelessness, Protecting Stateless Persons from Arbitrary Detention: An Agenda for Change, April 2017

Header image: Idomeni Refugee Camp, Greece © Julian Buijzen

 

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