Refugees and migration: Is Europe closing its doors?

The " Global Refugee Crisis 2026 " report, published Monday in Berlin, is intended to be a wake-up call, according to its co-editor Petra Bendel from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Bavaria). At its presentation, she expressed concern about the impact of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), a legal framework adopted in 2024 that will become legally binding across all EU member states on June 12: "We fear a further expansion of detention-like accommodation for asylum seekers at the external borders," Bendel said.

She was especially critical of the plan to concentrate refugees found to have no prospect of asylum in "return hubs," repatriation centers located in third countries outside of the European Union (EU). These are a central feature of tougher migration policy, that Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party has described as "innovative."

To set up such centers, however, the EU would be dependent on "cooperation partners," which it hopes to find in Africa. Tunisia and Egypt have been mentioned as options, as they are separated from Europe only by the Mediterranean Sea. But more remote countries, such as Rwanda and Uganda, are reportedly being considered too.

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In future, people seeking protection will face even greater difficulties than they do already, said Brendel: "We foresee further marginalization of particularly vulnerable groups and individuals."

For Brendel, the resettlement programs for people from Afghanistan are a case in point.  Since the German government halted them, more individuals have been put in danger of being persecuted by the fundamentalist Taliban and many refugees have been left stranded in Pakistan. "That is what I mean when I say the German state should live up to its responsibility to provide protection," Brendel argued.

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Franck Düvell, a migration researcher at the University of Osnabrück, described the EU reform as "poorly crafted." At worst, he says, it could lead to overlapping structures and result in a rollback of refugee rights, as well as those of children, women and families more generally.