Pillar 4 Fortress Europe

European Union policy on asylum and immigration. The construction of an excluding Europe.
Rapporteur: Patricia Bárcena García, Lawyer

By reviewing the legal instruments that the EU has been approving over the last few years we can explain why people have to risk their lives to reach Europe. There are no other options.

The Schengen Agreements[51] were the first step in the progressive construction of a united Europe without internal borders that favoured the free movement of European citizens while selectively limiting access to the EU for people from third countries. Not all of them were interested in it or continue to be interested. Since its inception, the EU policy on immigration has had a short-term and mercantile vision.

The construction of this space of freedom for some people [52]required protection and “control” from the arrival of “the others”, which is how the construction of fortress Europe was initiated through policies for the outsourcing of borders and the generation of two categories of citizenship (European and the rest).

At the same time, within the category of non-EU citizens, other subcategories were promoted: refugees, migrants by regular routes and those who migrated by irregular routes. Gradually deconstructing the concept of “every person” having the rights and freedoms proclaimed in Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), without distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political opinion or any other nature, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. At the same time, a criminalised image was constructed of who could reach Europe by irregular routes, who resides without documentation, or who loses it (the subject without rights – expellable).

This exclusionary configuration has been the source of the current Europe divided among those who proclaim the protection and guarantee of human rights and those who identify the arrival of people from third countries as a threat to their national identity, their security and their well-being.

Asylum and Immigration Policy was not a priority in the 1990s. It was border control in immigration policy and the slow construction of a common asylum system that was primordial.

Until the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, the EU Member States continued the theme of visas, asylum and immigration as matters of common interest, but within the own jurisdiction of each one of them. However, since the entry into force of this Treaty in 1999[53], the Council of the European Community was required to approve within five years the measures to be taken in accordance with Community immigration and asylum policy, including: conditions for entry, residence, procedures for obtaining visas to reside in Europe and the conditions for the transfer of residence from one State to another. And, for this, adopting the measures to deal with illegal immigration.

It was then at the Tampere summit in 1999 that the basic points on which this common policy was to pivot around were agreed upon, which continue today with slight modifications:

1. Collaboration with the countries of origin, which resulted in the signing of agreements aimed at curbing migration (both of national persons and those in transit) and facilitating the readmission of persons returned or expelled.
2. Creation of a common asylum system (SECA), which was shaped by the adoption of Directives, and which more than fifteen years later is undergoing a thorough review.
3. Fair treatment of third-country nationals residing legally in the territory of its Member States. Thus, excluding from this the possible equalisation of those who reside irregularly in the country with the rights and obligations with the citizens of the European Union. And opening them up to discrimination and exclusion.
4. Management of migratory flows. It focused more on control than on migration management.

This first Tampere program (1999-2004) was subsequently replaced by the multi-annual program (2005-2009) in The Hague where new priorities were introduced to strengthen the “space of freedom, security and justice” related to security and the prevention of terrorism.

After ten years in which, despite the adoption of a set of asylum and immigration directives, the Member States had not transposed these into their domestic legislation or had done so only in part, the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU entered into force (Treaty of Lisbon), which changed the legal and institutional framework. It went from being a policy of minima to a common policy[54].

 

The European Council meeting in Stockholm laid down a new road map for the period 2010-2014 and, despite having a unique opportunity to advance a coherent and respectful human rights policy of the EU, the only standards secured were those aimed at encouraging return[55], criminalising solidarity, the so-called “package on illegal aid to irregular immigration”[56], and punishing those who employ citizens in an irregular situation[57].

It is true that labour was needed, but not just any labour. It was the market, once again, that set the guidelines. Not people. For this reason, only the arrival of a select few was favoured: those that were highly qualified (who were awarded a blue-EU card)[58], those who did the work and then returned (temporary[59]) or those that the companies and multinationals wanted to transfer to their branches and subsidiaries located in the EU to occupy managerial and specialist positions[60]. The rest were restricted entry, even hindering family reunification.

In the area of asylum, a new SECA was proposed with the aspiration, as explained on numerous occasions by the then European Commissioner for the Interior, Cecilia Malmström, to create a space of protection and solidarity for the most vulnerable.

A space that facilitates access to the asylum procedure for those in need of protection, allows more equitable, expeditious and sound decisions, assures those who fear persecution that they will not be returned to the situation of danger and, finally, provides decent and acceptable conditions for both asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection within the Union.

The current SECA is composed of: The Procedures Directive[61], The Reception Directive[62], The Directive for Requirements on Recognition[63], The Regulation of the Eurodac Database[64] and the Dublin Regulation[65] and was expected to be fully operational in the second half of 2015, when all the Directives were transposed to all EU Member States (June 2015).

Following the Stockholm Program, the European Council defined[66] the directives that in the next few years (2014-2020) was to guide the transposition, implementation and consolidation of existing legal instruments and measures, emphasising the need to optimise the benefits of legal migration, combat irregular migration and efficiently manage the borders. Offering protection to whoever needs it through a system (the SECA) that, due to its failure, is in the process of being revised.

Conformation of the Spanish regulatory framework and its adaptation to Union policy.

The first normative reference concerning foreigners in Spain, it picks up on the Spanish Constitution of 1978, when indicating in its articles: 13.1. “Foreigners shall enjoy in Spain the public freedoms guaranteed by this title in the terms established by the Treaties and the Law” and 13.4.: “The law will establish the terms in which citizens of other countries and stateless persons may enjoy the right of asylum in Spain.”

That same year, Spain adhered to the 1951 Geneva Convention and the New York Protocol of 1967. However, it was only in 1984[67] that the first law on asylum in Spain was approved to respond to the arrival of a migrant population mainly made up of refugees who had been fleeing the dictatorships of the southern tip of Latin America: Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

A year later, in 1985, the first Law of Aliens was passed[68]. At that moment, immigration was practically imperceptible, but the imminent entry of Spain into the European Economic Community (that was to take place in 1986), imposed the necessity of introducing these regulations into our legal framework. Its main objective was therefore to regulate (control) the entry of people into Spain, and establish a sanctioning regime to penalise the non-compliance of those entry rules. It contains no objective of an integrative nature.

The economic growth of the country, and the need for labour, make Spain an attractive destination. But, along with economic growth, the pressure that Europe exerted on us grew (we were already beginning to be attributed the responsibility of being “Europe’s southern border”), and this consequently led to changes. In 1991, the agreement to abolish visas with Morocco was cancelled, we began talking about flow control, and we looked at immigration from a growth-threat perspective. We adopted the European discourse but our reality required responding to the arrival of people who obtained a job in our country and those who remained to reside in it irregularly; for this reason, a parliamentary approval procedure was approved[69] through a proposition, not a Law.

In 1994, the Law regulating the Right of Asylum was modified, under the premise that it was being misused by economic immigration. It began to speak of “abuse of asylum” and the figure of the foreign person, who threatens – who abuses the right – and who uses irregular routes of arrival to the country, began to be built around the image of people arriving from sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the reform, Spain went from having about 15,000 asylum applications a year, to having only 7,000. A figure that gradually decreased in successive years, until 2015.

During the following years the growth of the migrant population was even greater. We still needed workers but people came, and the Law of Aliens did not provide answers to the new social reality.

There was only a brief time when the legal framework put people and their rights above control. In 2000, with an almost global consensus between parties and social movements, the Organic Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners in Spain and their Social Integration[70] was discussed for the first time. Any hint of progress in the recognition of rights was, however, tarnished in a few months, since the Government majority of the Partido Popular reformed it before it was even a year old.

At this time, this same Law has been reformed on ten occasions[71], which reflects the political and self-interested use that, throughout these years, has been made of migration and the rights that should protect migrants.

The restrictive measures taken to control migration do not consider human rights and their impact on the people applying for international protection.

Spain decided to continue to impose visas on countries with which it has historically maintained special relations; initiated with Morocco in 1991 and Peru, the Dominican Republic (1993), Cuba (2002), Colombia (2002), Ecuador (2003) and Bolivia 2007). For example, in the case of Colombia, a country immersed in a civil war for half a century, the 2,532 people who came to Spain to apply for protection in 2001 went down to 1,065 in 2002 and 752 in 2008. Nonetheless, at the same time, European countries, aware of the violence that was striking the country, issued declarations of solidarity or condemned the attacks and kidnappings that occurred daily in Colombia.

The construction of walls and barriers also began to prevent the arrival of people regardless of the reasons why they had had to leave their countries. An investment of 33 million Euro in wire with prongs six metres high was made to render the border perimeters of Ceuta and Melilla impermeable. A height that was doubled between September and November of 2005 due to the crisis unleashed in August and September of that year when more than 700 unarmed sub-Saharans tried to enter Spanish territory from the Moroccan border. Many of them were shot by Moroccan surveillance personnel; there were hundreds injured and at least fourteen people were killed by Moroccan police firing, not counting reports of unusually violent treatment at the hands of the Spanish authorities.

The EU Member States subsequently followed in the wake and built more than 235 km of fences at the EU’s external borders, which cost over EUR 175 million.

During 2006 the so-called “crisis de los cayucos” [“crisis of the canoes”] was unleashed. 39,180 people arrived at our coasts, 31,678 at the Canary Islands and 7,502 at the Peninsula and Baleares. It is not known how many perished. In view of these events, European deployment was reinforced, 12 million Euro were invested in the device Frontex (in 2008, 24 million were invested) and SIVE was extended to the Canary Islands coast. In short, the surveillance systems were tightened to ensure the interception of canoes on the high seas and to force their return. At the same time, the diplomatic offensive intensified, bilateral cooperation agreements increased[72] and controls were strengthened in the countries of origin or transit.

When the increasingly complex migratory trajectories are made by women, they are deeply affected by physical and sexual violence, mainly in border places. Also by its invisibilisation. Already in 2014, from CEAR-Euskadi it was denounced in the report “El camino sin fin; huellas de Mujeres en la Frontera Sur” [The road without end; traces of women on the southern border] the systematic violations that these women, victims of mafias crossing Africa to Spain, suffered and still suffer, their situation of invisibility and their extreme vulnerability. Women, among which more and more children, are being exploited by trafficking networks for sexual exploitation.

The only way to demand international protection in Spain without reaching the territory is through embassies or consulates, an option that since 2009 has disappeared since the current legislation regulating the Right of Asylum and Subsidiarity Protection only provides for the possibility of applying for a visa with the aim of being transferred to Spain to request protection, leaving the procedure to continue a regulatory evolution that has not taken place even seven years after the entry into force of the Act.

The SECA, a failed common system. Reactionary nationalisms.

Increased population movements and the arrival of people in Europe for protection have highlighted the weakness of the system at a time when a rapid response to an emergency situation is required.

Although, as we have seen, there has been a period of twenty years over which a whole set of rules were complied with, which aimed at a common project exceeding the limits of the Nation-State, there have over the years been opposing signs of reaction in which the States have been looking out for their interests alone, and which has now been clearly brought into evidence.

The 1990 Dublin Convention[73] (and its subsequent amendments, Dublin II and Dublin III) does not meet current needs[74] because it was not created with the aim of watching over refugee people and redistributing responsibility for their reception in an equitable manner (although it does make some provision in this regard), but rather of determining which State is responsible for examining each request based on criteria.

In the 1990s, asylum concerns did not arise due to the number of people who could reach European countries for protection (the threat of arrival of people was still far away, in developing countries) but due to the fact that whoever arrived in Europe could ask for asylum in different European countries or even that they could choose the country where to do that. The Dublin Convention thus established as the main criterion that a request for protection should be made in the first country of arrival (thus avoiding asylum shopping and “refugees in orbit”).

This criterion has had dire consequences for border states who have seen the responsibility disproportionately fall on them. And although the Geneva Convention lays down in its preamble the principle of international solidarity when the granting of the right of asylum is excessively “burdensome” for a State, this principle has not been applied. (In 1994, after receiving 460,000 asylum applications, mainly from people fleeing the Bosnian war, Germany proposed the distribution of asylum seekers that took account of the size of the country, the population and GDP). The proposal was rejected, mainly by France and United Kingdom).[75]

On the other hand, at certain times some of the States through which people entered seeking protection preferred not to identify them in order to avoid having to bear the costs of this process. (It is worth recalling the conflict that arose between Italy and France in 2011 with the arrival on the Italian shores of more than 26,000 former North African people whom Italy had let freely circulate in the absence of support from the rest of the State Members, and that was settled with the request of the leaders of both countries for the revision of Schengen.)

And finally, another issue that undermines Dublin is that not all States are prepared to guarantee the reception of persons seeking international protection. The situation in Greece and Italy made this clear recently. But before that, Greece had already been convicted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) since the conditions offered to asylum-seekers did not meet minimum requirements and were considered degrading treatment. In fact, the ECHR condemned Belgium for attempting to transfer an asylum seeker to Greece.[76] Since then the application of the Dublin Convention has been suspended in the Hellenic country.

However, those who are suffering more burdensome consequences is the people who are seeking protection. Although the existence of relatives in another State is a priority for the place of entry, in practice hundreds of families are separated by lack of coordination of information, lack of agile regrouping procedures, or lack of practice in the transfer of responsibility. While the husband is in Finland with refugee status the wife has been relocated in Spain – and no one knows how many months it will be necessary for the couple to be able to meet legally and both keep refugee status.

Neither the procedure nor the reception nor the guarantees of obtaining a statute are common. Differences in national asylum regulations are evident. Many people applying for protection know this and logically do not want to go there where rights are not respected. Sometimes they refuse to be identified.

The imbalance in the number of applications for international protection and the differences in grant ratesbetween the countries of the European Union are symptoms of the stagnation of the common asylum policy.

In 2016, Germany processed 745,265 applications for protection, while, for example, Spain, being the European frontier in the south, processed 15,755 applications, barely 1% of the total. Requests have dropped alarmingly in Melilla, there were only 2,440 applications for protection in 2016, less than half that of last year, and there were barely 220 requests in Ceuta (border enclaves with Africa).

The percentage of concessions in Germany and Sweden is 68% compared to 8% in Hungary or 32% in France and England. Spain is one of the countries where protection is more difficult to apply for.

The effectiveness of the rights of applicants throughout the international protection procedure, the quality of decision-making and the reception conditions are very disparate between the various States, being, in some cases, beneath international and European standards.

For example, in Malta, any foreigner without a visa, asylum seeker or not, may be held in prison for up to eighteen months. Prior to the entry into force of the Return Directive, this time was unlimited.

Greece was summoned by the European Commission on 10 February and 15 June 2016 by two Recommendations to deal with serious shortcomings in the asylum system and with a view to the resumption of transfers under the Dublin Regulation. Deficiencies such as that of 8 December 2016 [77] continued to persist mainly in the legal aid system, in guaranteeing effective judicial protection to appeal against denials of international protection, and in the protection and reception of unaccompanied minors.

The deadlines for processing an application are different in each State and the rights to which the person has access during processing also differ.

Nor have the States so far guaranteed a coherent and gender-sensitive treatment of women seeking protection in Europe. Nor do they provide favourable treatment to the most vulnerable people (minors, persons with disabilities, victims of trafficking)

In Spain until June 2016 there were scarcely six women who were granted protection for being victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, and it is not yet possible to know the data on gender-based protections since the data are not disaggregated. Nor is it known what/how is the most favourable treatment that must be granted in the procedure to the most vulnerable groups because it has to be defined in the longed-for regulations for the development of the Law.

Xenophobic and racist movements are resurfacing in some European states in the various electoral campaigns with results that are concerning in all cases.

Some of the measures that have been proposed such as measures to control refugees directly affect dignity, and others are aimed at limiting fundamental rights such as family life or freedom.

Denmark has carried out a legislative reform that allows the Government to expropriate from refugees their assets and money to finance their stay, as Switzerland already does. The police will confiscate any amount over 10,000 Danish crowns (1,340 Euro), as well as valuables, except those with “special affective value” such as wedding bands. And it has also hardened family reunification.

In Germany, according to data from the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, there were 163 violent attacks on refugee shelters in the country in 2015, almost six times more than in the previous year.

In the United Kingdom refugees claim to have been victims in their homes, identifiable by the colour of the doors, xenophobic attacks with the launching of dog excrement, eggs, stones and even with logos of the far-right National Front party.

Austria has followed the wake of so many other European states (Spain leading) and has built barriers to stop the arrival of people, 3.7 kilometres long, in the south of the country, on the border with Slovenia.

Sweden, the home country for refugees, par excellence, said last year that it could no longer accommodate more people. For the first time since 1950 Stockholm has imposed controls on the border.

Xenophobic attacks have also grown and an anti-refugee sentiment is beginning to gain ground, according to Human Rights Watch.

For more than 15 years the European Union has been unable to comply with its own standards and has converted the right to seek protection from a fundamental right recognised in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, into a true luxury within the grasp of very few people.

The EC has now opened 40 infringement proceedings against several Member States for failing to fully implement the SECA legislation.

The failure of the Relocation and Resettlement agreements.

In response to the increase in the arrival of people seeking protection in Europe, the European Commission on 13 May 2015 adopted the European Migration Agenda, which resulted in the adoption of two packages of measures in late May and early September.

Among its proposals were the relocation of asylum seekers from Greece and Italy and the resettlement of refugees from third countries. In July, the States pledged to relocate 32,256 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, with a commitment of reaching 40,000 in December, according to the European Commission’s proposal.

In September, pressured by public reaction and indignation, they accepted the relocation of 120,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece. Although, in the Commission’s initial proposal, Hungary was to be a country from which asylum-seekers would be relocated, its Government rejected the final scheme adopted by the Council.

For this reason, out of the 120,000 relocated agreed, 54,000 remained pending reallocation among the receiving states. As far as resettlement is concerned, only the first agreement included the commitment of States to this mechanism and the resettlement of 22,504 refugees, mainly from North Africa, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa was approved.

The relocation and resettlement programmes have failed. At the beginning of June 2017, only 20,327 people had been relocated.

Spain has promised to relocate 15,888 people up to September 2017. In particular, 9,323 should be arriving from Greece and Italy, and the origin of the remaining 6,600 refugees is still awaiting determination. So far, 886 people have arrived. A trickling welcome.

In the cases of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, the Commission has initiated disciplinary procedures against these for breaching their obligations under the Council Decisions on relocation in 2015. Despite repeated appeals by the Commission, these three countries continue to breach their legal obligations and have disregarded their commitments to Greece, Italy and other Member States.

In the resettlement program, out of the 22,504 persons with refugee statuses in third countries that the European Union has undertaken to accommodate, only 16,163 have been transferred to community soil.

Spain pledged to resettle 1,449 people. As of 5 June 2017, they have only transferred 418 people.

These extraordinary reception mechanisms could have been a starting point for relying on a Europe that really guarantees the rights of people, just and in solidarity. However, this reaction, rather than an act of responsibility, more resembled an auction of people accompanied by a policy of return that was effective and harmful to people.

Investing energies in securing the support of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which are countries under greater migratory pressure, so that they would control the departure of people. And reinforcing naval operations to avoid the transfer of people, not to save lives.

Undoubtedly, where the failure of a European policy that respects human rights legislation and prioritises care to people has been the most palpable has been the signing of the agreement between the EU and Turkey. There is no doubt that the main objective of the European Union is to curb the arrival of refugees and migrants and in order to achieve this, it has not hesitated to associate itself with a country such as Turkey, which will receive compensation of 6,000 million Euro, visa liberalisation for its citizens, and the reopening of negotiations for its future accession to the EU.

An agreement that CEAR has denounced to the European Commission, to the European Commissioner for Human Rights and to the European Ombudsman to demand its withdrawal, with the support of more than 300 social organisations and more than 11,000 citizens who believe in Human Rights and do not want to be accomplices to barbarism.

The proposals for reform of the SECA, a new threat to international protection.

A further twist in EU policy.

Drawing on the need to create a system that was “more equitable, efficient and sustainable” (even using arguments very similar to those alleged by Cecilia Malmström at the time) the European Commission submitted on 6 April 2016 a communication[78] to the Council and Parliament with proposals for the reform of the Common European Asylum System, which, once again, seems to be aimed more at prioritising the interests of States and the Union rather than ensuring the fulfilment of the obligations relating to the right of asylum and international protection.

On May 4, 2016, the first phase of the reform began:

• New Version of Regulation of Dublin III laying down the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (new version):
  • Strengthening the effectiveness of the system by determining a single Member State responsible for examining applications for international protection.
  • Establishing a more equitable system of distribution through a corrective mechanism that will automatically detect if a Member State faces a disproportionate number of asylum applications.
  • Providing a clarification of the obligations of asylum seekers in the European Union, as well as the consequences of non-compliance with those obligations.
• Modifying the Eurodac Regulation so that it adapts to the modifications of the Dublin system and ensure its proper application.
• Strengthening the mandate of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) by making it a genuine European Asylum Agency.

And on 13 July 2016 the European Commission agreed to complete the second phase to:

• Replace the Asylum Procedures Directive with a Regulation: reduce procedural deadlines, establish common guarantees, combat abuses, and establish the definition of safe countries.
• Replace the Qualification Directive by a Regulation: achieving convergence of recognition rates, punishing secondary movements, equating the duration of protection time, and establishing incentives for integration.
• Reform the Reception Directive: with a view to establishing dignified and harmonised reception conditions throughout the EU.

The main threats of this reform such as CEAR has included in its report “Cinco puntos críticos de SECA” [Five critical points of SECA] [79] revolve around:

1. Penalising secondary movements. Since it limits the possibility that people can move to another state, and even penalises them. Freedom of movement is reduced. They will not be able to choose.

States will even lose the possibility of deciding for themselves whether they assume responsibility for an application.

2. Guaranteeing the rights of asylum seekers and refugees is reduced. Since limitations are introduced on fundamental rights such as free legal aid or the right to life in the family.
3. Lack of protection of people in situations of vulnerability, since there is no progress in improving information between States or in taking measures to provide special care to the most vulnerable.
4. Application of restrictive concepts and criteria. Of particular concern here is the possible automatic application of concepts such as “safe third country”, “first country of asylum”, “safe country of origin” or “safety hazard”, as they may lead to the total impossibility of requesting protection or the systematic denial of applications.
5. Barriers to reception, through the extension of detention cases, the introduction of indeterminate concepts such as “dignified standard of living” or “risk of flight”.

And the incorporation of a corrective mechanism activated once the capacity of reception has been surpassed by 150 %, whereby States can detach themselves from it for a fee.

Conclusions and Claims:

• Over the last twenty years, in the construction of the European project, the Europe of freedoms, space of freedom, security and justice has prioritised the control, security and well-being of citizenship that is not inclusive but exclusive.
• The strategy of classifying people into refugee, migrant, legal or illegal categories perverts these concepts, gradually empties them of content and nullifies a serene debate on the right to migrate and the right to seek protection.
• The enormous production of standards has failed to establish a common asylum and migration policy that prioritises human rights and protection mechanisms (both ordinary and extraordinary). The legislator has prioritised this perspective. The principles and values that underpin the Union run the risk of collapsing along with the European project.
• The outsourcing of borders favours the death of people at sea and in the desert. Violence against women on migratory routes is a constant. Failure to adopt safe routes of access and access to the destination favours the actions of mafias and the impunity of violence.
• European action with regard to third countries cannot be limited to conditioning cooperation on border control; it is necessary to work on the causes of displacement from the standpoint of responsibility and rigour.
• Faced with the increase in requests for international protection from people arriving from countries in conflict or where it is believed that human rights are being violated, the concession rates have not exponentially increased. In 2015 more than half of the applicants came from Syria and Ukraine.
• The construction in Spain of a policy of asylum and immigration from the concept of invasion and threat has succeeded in legitimising restrictive policies, which violate human rights and pave the way for discrimination and xenophobia; movements that are already seeping through in other European countries.
• No extraordinary measure of protection or welcome will be effective if there is no political will to implement it.

We therefore REQUIRE/DEMAND:

• A reflection on the concept of citizenship, content and scope so we can move towards the recognition of all people having the same rights and obligations.
• A rigorous debate on displacements (voluntary or forced) from a human rights approach and their integral protection, whether they are political, social or cultural rights. The various instruments of protection, scope and content.
• The incorporation of a human rights approach into the policies of the European Union, as part of the new regulatory framework. The recovery of the foundational values and the creation of a true space of freedom and protection for all people.
• The elimination of bilateral agreements with countries that violate the rights of migrants.
• The opening of humanitarian corridors, issuance of visas at embassies and consulates, compliance with relocation and resettlement commitments, and adaptation of other alternatives that favour safe access routes to protection.
• The end to illegal returns on the borders of Ceuta and Melilla.
• The development of the Law on Asylum and Subsidiary Protection from a gender perspective, which incorporates agile, guaranteed procedures and in keeping with the vulnerability of each person.
• The adoption of measures of integration and generation of coexistence with equal rights, to prevent xenophobia and hate crimes.
• The immediate approval of the Regulations for the development of the Law on Asylum and Subsidiary Protection after more than seven years of delay.