32^nd session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Management of migration flows now an ongoing feature on the political agenda of European border regions

The “Border regions facing migration flows” debate, held on 29 March in the Council of Europe Assembly Chamber, during the 32^nd session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, highlighted the diversity and complexity of the migration situation in Europe. Border regions which are directly impacted by national and European policies should be able to benefit directly from EU aid. In addition, the issue of unaccompanied migrant children is a real emergency.

A few examples: impacted by an unprecedented economic crisis since 2009, Greece is rightly seeking more help from European solidarity mechanisms. Irena Dourou, member of the Chamber of Regions and Governor of the Attica region, criticised the inefficiency of the Dublin system. She felt that regions should be able to benefit directly from EU financial aid in order to manage migration flows.  For this reason she called on the Chamber of Regions to make a formal undertaking to lobby the EU to this effect. The Dublin regulation is deemed ineffective by many countries, which recognise that the burden weighing down on border regions is unsustainable. The example of Csongrád County, a Hungarian region situated on the Balkans route, should prompt us to look at the migration question beyond its purely humanitarian dimension: “We must manage the interests of our fellow citizens and those of migrants in a fair and equal manner”, said Anna Magyar (Hungary, EPP/CCE).

“We must differentiate between those who seek to flee war and the smuggling system which brings thousands of economic migrants to Europe.” The stance of the Hungarian representative Anna Magyar concerning the need “to extinguish the fire at its source” was shared by Alexey Ostrovsky (Russia, ILDG), who argued for a change in EU foreign policy towards Syria and the Middle-East. Osman Sanli (Turkey, ECR), on the other hand, alerted members of the Congress to the mistreatment that migrants suffer from at some borders within Europe, and pointed out that his country had already welcomed 3 million migrants.

In the extremely complex context of the migration crisis, an urgent issue has been raised which goes beyond political and national differences; the fate of unaccompanied minors. Rapporteur Lora Pappa, President of the Greek NGO METAdrasi, said that this group “is the most vulnerable and the one most exposed to all sorts of depravities”. In the past two years, the inability of the Greek state to mobilise supplementary means of managing the arrival of 80,000 unaccompanied children into the country has led to situations of great hardship. The closing of the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia stranded 2,300 unaccompanied minors in Greece, of whom, so far, only 1,312 have been taken care of by civil society organisations. Despite the commitment of Greek municipalities, which have been managing the migration problem since the 1990s with few resources, local authorities do not have a specific policy tailored to minors. Various European cities that are able to help have not yet responded to the appeals made by Greece. Members of the Congress encouraged the regions to follow the positive example of a Portuguese Civic Platform which, despite bureaucratic obstacles, has been able to arrange for 5 children to be taken in by Portuguese families.

Constructive experiences regarding the specific treatment of unaccompanied foreign minors carried out by German border regions, such as Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, were also spotlighted during the debate as model initiatives which could help Greek regions to manage the current crisis.

The example of the Greek NGO METAdrasi, which has special expertise in supporting unaccompanied minor migrants, is also a promising sign that the situation could be resolved with the help of solidarity mechanisms at municipal, regional and national levels and, above all, at European level.

The need to implement a co-operation model at European level also features among the main conclusions of the report by Carolina Darias San Sebastián, the President of the Regional Parliament of the Canaries in Spain. She placed the main emphasis on the need to save lives, referring to the “Caicos crisis” crossing the Atlantic. Having drawn up a detailed list of measures to prevent catastrophes such as the one in Lampedusa, she reiterated the necessity to co-operate with African countries to address the problem at its source. She concluded that although the 20^th Century was that of the technical revolution, the 21^st Century will be remembered as the age of the migration crisis, a crisis for all humanity which calls for a united response founded on European humanitarian values.