Today, at the meeting of EU interior ministers, a so-called Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism is to be adopted based on the proposal of the French Council Presidency.
This mechanism is intended to relocate persons rescued from distress at sea from the EU’s external border countries to other European member states – without the consent of the persons concerned and with the same non-transparent categories as we have already seen with the Malta mechanism.
“Nancy Faeser tries to sell further border expansion and isolation of the EU as solidarity. Solidarity with whom? At the heart of the Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism are not the rights of protection seekers, but the option for EU states to buy their way out of their responsibilities at the expense of people on the move.” Mattea Weihe, spokesperson Sea-Watch.
Member states would be allowed to pick and choose who fits into their national picture of migration and which EU State they want to support. This will lead to nothing more than people being selected according to nationalities, economic exploitation logics and deportation potential.
In addition, member states will have the opportunity to participate in “financial solidarity” in the form of surveillance techniques, deportation jails and funding of projects in third countries to counter migration. What is sold here as a mechanism of solidarity actually means further externalisation of the EU’s external borders, flight prevention and border expansion.
If the SPD-led Ministry of the Interior under Nancy Faeser agrees to this proposal today, it means that the new federal government will continue with the hostile isolationist policy promoted by the grand coalition and will not have the people seeking protection and their rights in mind, but will once again try to sell the prevention of migration as solidarity.
