A non-binding agreement on migration and developed in the framework of the United Nations has become the battle horse of the nationalist forces in their struggle against the multilateralism. The controversy over the Pact on Migration of the united nations, which is expected to be formally adopted in December and that the united States is unchecked already a year ago, it spreads like an oil stain also for Europe.
In the EU, has found a rejection in a handful of countries, willing to undermine the global efforts to regulate migration and to build consensus on minimum rights for the migrants. And above all, it has given rise to a reaction overacted in front of a text that in reality it is a mere declaration of principles, but that populism considers the bible of the effect called, able to unleash historical avalanches of migration.
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DOWNLOADABLE Text of the covenant of the United Nations for migration safe, orderly and regular Towards a system of governance of world migration
Until now, the united States, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Israel and Australia have been unchecked, while Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia have announced that they intend to do so. In Germany, the controversy over the covenant has been located in the center of the debate over the succession of Angela Merkel, stressing the ability of populist forces to mark the calendar. “There are people who think they can solve everything by themselves and do not need to think of no one else and that is the purest form of nationalism”, chancellor Merkel said last week in a speech unusually passionate to the Bundestag, which he dedicated in good part to uphold the covenant of the discord.
Louise Arbour, special envoy of the UN for international migration, said this week in an interview with the Associated Press that he was “very disappointed” at the withdrawal of certain countries by “the pressures of internal politics,” and for “strange reasons”.
The global Pact on migration was approved last July by 193 members, and the 10 and the 11 of December is scheduled for the formal adoption of the text in Marrakech. Critics of the deal say the reverse of what is shown in the text, that it is an attack on the national sovereignty of countries, and that undermines his ability to trace its migration policy. Say that confuse legal immigration with illegal and accuse in addition to the Governments signatories of the hidden to the public opinion a covenant, which has already 18 months of consultations and negotiations.
The text comprising 23 general principles that each country undertakes to respect in the development of national migration policy. It is a pioneering effort to address migration in a comprehensive and global, that is to point out the challenges, but also to optimise the benefits of migration and, above all, to protect the undertaking route. It advocates a greater coordination and data sharing among States, and greater efforts in integration policies.
it Was in the UN general assembly in 2016 when it was agreed to put in place a global jobs pact that order and regulate migration and provide protection to migrants. The UN accounted for 258 million people living outside their country of birth, and warns that the figure will continue to increase. Remember also that around 60,000 people have died since the year 2000 in the sea, in the desert and in general in the migratory journey.
“The panic that has been awakened in [the agreement] is not justified according to Gencobahis the content of the document. After Marrakech there is not an automatic process. Each government will decide what policies it wants to implement and how, also a function of the pressure exercised by social and political groups in these countries”, explains Josephine Liebl, European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), a network of NGOS based in Brussels.
The agreement was born as a response to the largest migration crisis in Europe since the Second World War, which had its peak in the year 2015. Germany is the european country in which he stopped more asylum-seekers; about a million and a half. The issue of the refugees, however, deals with another global agreement of United Nations in gestation, and not the one they now raise blisters, which focuses on the migration. But for the purposes of political debate, in which everything tends to blend in with the late spurious, it all seems to give a little bit the same.
“Bad communication”
In Germany, the debate around the covenant also has irrupted with force in political life and, above all, in the race for the succession of Merkel on the front of the conservative party. In the meetings of the candidates to the succession with the activists of the CDU, the possible effects of the covenant are still one of the most recurring questions. “There has been poor communication on the part of the Government. This matter has been two years under the radar. It is a topic that is of concern to the population and there is talk of him”, defended at the margins of an event of the CDU’s deputy Tino Sorge. The pressure is such that the parties of the grand coalition —the centre-right and social democrats— have agreed a text to be presented to the Parliament in defending the covenant and trying to dispel some “myths” about him and ensure that its formal adoption in December it will not impose any binding obligation in Germany.
The pact of the UN will be one of the issues I will address in a couple of weeks ago the centre-right German at a conference crucial, in which will elect its new president. He has been the minister of Health, Jens Spahn, and one of the three candidates for the succession, which has called for a more profound debate on the agreement to suggest that Berlin has negotiated back to the population.
“This covenant for the migration, is the successful attempt to find solutions to global problems internationally, together”, has pointed out, however, the chancellor this Wednesday to the Bundestag. “It is our national interest that the conditions of migrants in the world improve”, he added.
As the other forces, populist, Alternative for Germany, the extreme right has made of the covenant of the UN flag. “It is encouraging millions of people out of regions in crisis to take to the road [and to emigrate], has pointed out, the co-leader of AfD, Alexander Gauland, who has assessed that this is a first step to turn migration into a “human right”. “The left-wing dreamers and the elite globalists want our country goes from a nation-State to an area of settlement”.
The neighbour Austria has already announced that it does not intend to support the agreement. “Austria is not going to accede to the pact”, announced last month, Sebastian Kurz, the austrian chancellor who rules in coalition with the extreme right. “We criticize some of the points of the covenant as mix to those who seek protection with the migration of labor.” Austria is the rotating president of the European Union and Kurz, defender of the hard line against migration, is a reference to many conservative europeans. In Vienna and in other capitals fear that the pact would open the door to the right to migration as a universal human right.
it has Also been unchecked Poland, “which does not respond to the demand of the Polish to ensure the right of countries to independently decide who to accept and who not,” according to the Executive of Warsaw in a statement. The Polish Government is another of the defenders in Europe of the policy of a heavy hand with immigration.
But regardless of the reviews make reference to aspects that appear in a greater or lesser extent in the text, what is certain is that with the covenant, the countries that have decided to follow the path marked by Washington to launch an important political signal in favour of another model of international cooperation. The paradox is, however, that the resistance is ultra-nationalist, has finished giving the covenant of a relevance and scale with which their promoters probably do not even dreamed of.
