Germany wants to hold on to deportations

Despite the advance of the radical Islamist Taliban, several EU countries – including Germany – insist that deportations to Afghanistan be retained in principle. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and his Austrian counterpart Karl Nehammer are among the six signatories of a letter to the EU Commission warning of an increase in the number of refugees from Afghanistan.

Ending the deportations “sends the wrong signal and will likely induce even more Afghan citizens to leave their homeland for the EU,” said the letter to EU Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas and Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson. In addition to Germany and Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece have also joined the appeal.

In the letter, the representatives of the six states refer to a verbal note by the Afghan government from the beginning of July, which called for a moratorium on deportations for a period of three months due to the deteriorated security situation. The six EU states called on the EU Commission to conduct an “intensive dialogue” with the partners in Afghanistan on all migration issues – including the issue of deportations.

The Belgian State Secretary, Sammy Mahdi, responsible for migration, tweeted that not all refugees in a country are automatically in need of protection because there is danger in some regions. Mattias Tesfaye, who, as Dutch Minister for Integration, had also signed the appeal, welcomed the initiative in retrospect.

A spokesman for the EU Commission pointed out on Tuesday that the decision on possible deportations rests with the member states. Finland and Sweden had suspended the return of rejected asylum seekers, while countries such as Germany, Austria and Denmark intend to hold on to this in principle. In Germany, a deportation flight was last canceled at the beginning of August because of a Taliban bombing in Kabul.

Asselborn: “I can only shake my head”

Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn criticized the appeal of the six EU states to the EU Commission. “I can only shake my head,” he told Tagesspiegel. “There is no guarantee that those affected will not fall into the hands of the Taliban,” he said. A discussion about possible deportations was not possible at the moment in view of the tense security situation in Afghanistan. Instead, the priority now must be to give refuge to local staff who had supported the EU and the United Nations, among others, Asselborn said.

Nouripour: Pressure from Europe is destructive

The Greens foreign politician Omid Nouripour also turned against the initiative of the six EU states. “The Taliban are overrunning the country, there are attacks on civilian facilities every day,” he said. “The pressure from Europe on the Afghan government is not only unworldly, it is simply destructive,” said Nouripour.

Numerous civil society organizations have meanwhile called on the German government to suspend deportations to Afghanistan. “Even Germany must not turn a blind eye to the worsening situation in Afghanistan and must stop all deportations,” said a joint declaration signed by Pro Asyl, Caritas and Arbeiterwohlfahrt, among others.

In their appeal, the organizations recall an urgent decision by the European Court of Human Rights from the beginning of August, in which a deportation from Austria to Kabul was stopped with reference to the security situation there. The deportation was originally supposed to take place together with Germany.

However, the Federal Ministry of the Interior subsequently took the position that the decision of the Human Rights Court was an individual case. The so-called status report of the Federal Foreign Office is currently being revised, which describes the security situation in the country and thus forms the basis for possible deportations. Critics accuse the German government of not yet addressing the Taliban’s current offensive in the management report.

EU interior ministers will discuss on August 18th

The situation in Afghanistan should also be the subject of a video conference of the EU interior ministers on August 18th. The conference was originally called after the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko sent refugees from Iraq and other countries to Lithuania. With a view to Afghanistan, Seehofer and his counterparts demanded in the letter to the Commission that the common goal of the EU states must be to ensure that refugees from Afghanistan in the neighboring countries in the region are supplied. To this end, cooperation with Afghanistan and with neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Iran on migration control and border protection should be stepped up.