exclusive
The Federal Ministry of the Interior has asked experts to what extent asylum procedures can be outsourced to third countries such as Rwanda. According to information from WDR, ndr and SZ, many of those interviewed have serious doubts.
This spring, a group of experts gradually came to the Federal Ministry of the Interior: lawyers, officials from think tanks and non-governmental organizations, representatives from Denmark and Great Britain.
They should all help the federal government to provide guidance in a rather heated debate. The simple keyword for this is Rwanda. The Federal Ministry of the Interior should answer one question: Can Germany outsource asylum procedures to other countries and thereby reduce the number of people seeking protection and perhaps also the number of deaths along the migration routes?
According to information from WDR, ndr and Süddeutsche Zeitung, the clear majority of experts interviewed by the Interior Ministry sharply criticized the outsourcing of asylum procedures to third countries. A total of 28 experts were interviewed. The assessments of 21 of them were obtained for this research. Some of the written statements are also available.
Rwanda? Almost impossible, according to experts
Accordingly, the legal and, above all, the actual hurdles for outsourcing asylum procedures abroad are very high. Outsourcing to a country like Rwanda is considered almost impossible by almost all those interviewed whose position is presented.
According to participants, the Interior Ministry repeatedly asked urgently about possible legal bases for outsourcing during the hearings. Participants interpret this to mean that government officials do not automatically consider legal feasibility to be a given.
The analysis of the presentations and papers of the experts at the ministry shows that almost all of them have serious doubts about outsourcing models such as those being promoted by Great Britain with Rwanda or by Italy with Albania. The reason for this is less legal questions than those of costs and benefits: asylum centers abroad, the majority of experts agree, are expensive and inefficient.
Only very few people could probably actually be brought abroad using such a construction – if states can be found at all that can promise security and would be willing to accept asylum seekers from Europe. Many of those surveyed also consider this unlikely. Last but not least, the majority of the 21 migration experts whose assessments are available warn of the serious ethical, human rights and political consequences of such outsourcing plans.
In practice “hardly imaginable”
Lawyer Pauline Endres de Oliveira from Humboldt University, for example, writes in her statement that “implementing this type of extraterritorial procedure in a way that complies with human rights and that adheres to essential procedural guarantees” is “hardly conceivable” in practice. Political scientist Volker Heins from Bielefeld University even writes of a “wrong path”.
If one follows the experts’ statements, the Italian model hardly plays a role here, since it involves bringing migrants from international waters directly to Albania. The Rwandan principle, with the possibility of flying people to a third country directly from Germany, was examined more closely.
According to the experts, asylum procedures in third countries are possible under very specific conditions. For this to happen, the third country must comply with the Geneva Refugee Convention and the EU Human Rights Convention. For example, there must be no risk that people will subsequently be sent back to third countries where they face danger.
Bound by EU law
An EU member state such as Germany is bound by EU law or the Asylum Procedures Directive. This currently contains the so-called connection criterion: This means that a person can only be sent back against their will to a third country with which they have a connection. However, a simple transit with a short stay is not enough for this.
A softening of this connection criterion is currently being discussed at the European level. However, this would still entail many obligations, as lawyer Nora Markard from the University of Münster puts it in her statement: “Submission to EU standards would remain.”
The representatives of the Expert Council emphasize in their analysis that it is possible to do without the connecting element, but a “human rights case-by-case examination” remains necessary. There are significantly more arguments against outsourcing than for it.
Not without the use of “considerable resources”
Even if the question of the connection to a country were to be “put aside” by law, the requirements to ensure a “fair and efficient” procedure and the protection of people abroad would remain high. This was explained by Potsdam lawyer Andreas Zimmermann. “These could only be ensured, if at all, by expending considerable resources,” he continues.
Resources: By this, Zimmermann means that Germany would have to use its own personnel to continuously monitor and provide support to ensure that human rights and humanitarian standards are observed in the country to which it deports asylum seekers – and that they are not deported from there.
This, in turn, would mean a great deal of work for the already overburdened Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). BAMF President Hans-Eckhard Sommer is said to have pointed this out internally. He was also invited as an expert, but did not want to comment on his presentation when asked.
Warning of significant costs
Many other experts also pointed out the considerable costs that such models would entail. In his hearing, Raphael Bossong from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs described the sums estimated or already spent in Italy and Great Britain to send away asylum seekers as disproportionate.
According to the research, two of the experts interviewed in particular emphasized the opportunities offered by outsourcing. Social scientist Gerald Knaus has long argued that the effort to comply with all the rules would be worthwhile.
Only a few asylum seekers would have to be brought to such third countries and many would be deterred and not even set out. But Knaus believes that the prerequisite is that the asylum seekers would have to be identified at the EU’s external border. He considers it impossible for them to be transferred once they are already in Germany.
Changes in the law according to expert prerequisite
Konstanz legal scholar Daniel Thym emphasizes the legal options. According to him, however, a number of changes to the law would be required – such as the correction of the connection criterion that has already been discussed. He also notes, however, that the BAMF in Germany must first make a decision.
Current procedures take three to four months, during which the applicant is “effectively allowed to move freely within the federal territory”. Thym sees a possible way out of this dilemma in outsourcing to “clearly safe neighboring countries” such as Turkey or Serbia, but not Rwanda – in this case, a procedure could “possibly be dispensed with altogether”.