Sílvia Morgades Gil: "The EU will have spaces at the border where the fiction will be created that migrants are not in Europe"

During the Spanish rotating presidency, the Twenty-seven approved the new Is the objective of the European agreement to curb irregular immigration?

— The pillars of this pact are three. First, border control. In the European Union, groups of people are created who find themselves in an irregular situation, either because they entered irregularly or because they have not found a way to regularize themselves. Furthermore, countries are incapable of expelling these people, because the countries of origin often do not cooperate, because they cannot be identified or directly because they are non-returnable. The aim is to prevent these groups from growing larger and larger, and therefore, to contain immigrant entries or, at least, to discourage them.

The other two legs?

— Another is the regulation on the instrumentalization of immigration, which, for me, is the most dangerous, because it allows states that warn of the instrumentalization of immigrants to make exceptions to their rights. Honestly, I hope it is never applied, because if it is applied, we would have a problem.

What is worrying you? Give an example.

— Exceptions to granting asylum. For example, if Greece considers that Turkey threatens not to contain immigration towards Europe within its territory, Greece could ask the European Commission to exempt it from its obligation to take in asylum seekers.

And the third?

— The famous Dublin Regulation, which is no longer called that, but which remains in force in its style and basic rules, even though it represents a certain improvement. It is the first time in the mandatory legislation of the European Union, as it is a regulation, that solidarity mechanisms are established between the member states, so that there is a distribution of asylum seekers. I think this aspect is worth highlighting. In other words, not everything is repressive, but there are also elements that allow for a certain hope that things can improve.

So, what will change from this June 12 at the borders of the European Union?

— The Pact speaks of creating spaces at the Union's border points to carry out a rapid screening of non-EU nationals arriving to determine if they have the right to asylum. These screeningswill be carried out in spaces where the fiction will be created that they are not on European territory. In this way, theoretically these people will not have set foot on community territory, they will never have entered.

Are they non-spaces?

— They are spaces where it is invented that the European Union has not been entered, to generate international zones. We do not know what they will be like, but jurisprudence has already said that they are fictions. We will have to see if in these spaces the rights of the European Convention, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, will apply. For the moment, no protocols or forms of action have been published, but, in truth, I cannot imagine how it will be done in Barcelona.

Why?

— I don't know where they will create these spaces in which these people will gather for days and under various conditions, whether at the CIE in the Zona Franca or at El Prat airport.

Does the Pact prohibit new extraordinary regularizations like those Spain is currently undertaking?

— No, it also does not affect irregular immigration that is already within the member states, which maintain sovereignty on this issue. For example, Spain has the figure of 'arrelament' (settlement) to regularize foreigners living there.