Berlin – ESI at the Berlin European Asylum System Forum

Gerald Knaus (right). Photo: ESI

ESI's Gerald Knaus took part in a panel discussion at the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus of the German Bundestag on "The EU's Migration and Refugee Policy - Towards a Reform of the Common European Asylum System".

He presented ESI's core proposal to form a coalition of EU member states that have not given up on managing migration to Europe in an effective and humane way, and have this coalition build common EU asylum centres in Spain and Greece where asylum applications for all these countries are processed like they are in the Netherlands: timely and with sufficient support to the applicants. Moreover, this coalition should make a credible and attractive joint offer regarding legal pathways of migration to the migrants' main countries of origin in exchange of readmission agreements - only this way, the asylum system will function properly again.

The other speakers on the panel were Monica Goracci, head of IOM Germany; Berndt Körner, deputy executive director Frontex; Matthias Oel, Director, Migration, Mobility and Innovation, European Commission Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs; and Ulrich Weinbrenner, head of directorate for social cohesion and integration at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. The event was moderated by Christina Krause, Coordinator for Migration and Refugee Policy at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

• Die Welt, Ricarda Breyton, "Man darf die Dinge nicht treiben lassen" ("You cannot let things drift") (30 July 2018)
• ESI core facts: The Italian Magnet – Deaths, arrivals and returns in the Central Mediterranean (13 March 2018)
• Refugees Deeply, John Dalhuisen Gerald Knaus, How Italy Can Combine Migration Control With Human Rights (13 March 2018)
• ESI paper: "Amsterdam in the Mediterranean" – How a Dutch-style asylum system can help resolve the Mediterranean refugee crisis (26 January 2018) – ​also available in Italian: "Amsterdam nel Mediterraneo"
• ESI core facts: Refugees and asylum in the Aegean – The impact of the EU-Turkey statement (26 January 2018)
• ESI proposals for the refugee crises in the Central Mediterranean and the Aegean: www.esiweb.org/refugees
• Media reactions to ESI refugee proposals