In recent years, the media often reported cases of migrants who were found dead in the Alps, near the borders between Italy and its bordering countries. Whether they occurred on alpine trails connecting France and Italy or on the rails at Brenner, at the border between Austria and Italy, these tragedies revealed how borders still violently matter for some people, even within the supposed borderless space of the Schengen area. The migrants embarking in these perilous journeys are obliged to cross borders “illegally” because of the cornerstone of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS): the Dublin III Regulation. This regulation requires newly arrived migrants to apply for asylum in the first country through which they enter the European Union (EU). In this way, migrants are prevented from choosing where to live, from joining relatives and friends, and from reaching places where they speak the language of the host society. Yet, as the tragedies reported in the last few years show, migratory movements within the EU persist despite the Dublin III Regulation, but they are exposed to increasingly dangerous conditions.
Migration within the EU became particularly evident during the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015, when hundreds of thousands of migrants travelled across Europe, refusing to stay in the first country of entry. Since then, EU’s institutions and member states have intensified their efforts to control the mobility of migrants. So-called “hotspot” facilities were set up in border points in the Greek Aegean islands and in southern Italy to stop all newly arrived migrants, register them and collect their fingerprints. Relocation schemes gave the possibility to restricted groups of migrants to be transferred from the first country of arrival to another member state. Finally, some member states strengthened internal border controls within the Schengen area to prevent migrants from travelling within Europe.
The H2020 project CONDISOBS explored these attempts to govern migrant mobility with a view to understanding their effectiveness as well as their effects on migrants and on the local communities that are affected by these processes. The project was driven by the following research question: Do hotspots, relocation and border controls successfully limit the autonomous mobility of migrants within Europe? The main objective of CONDISOBS was to understand whether these measures have been successful in containing newly arrived migrants in the first country of entry and reducing unauthorised movements between member states.
The research highlighted several problematic aspects at stake in the implementation of the hotspot approach and relocation. First, the study showed how the attempt to contain migrants in the first country of entry has resulted in the massive detention of asylum seekers, widespread violations of human rights and arbitrary restriction to the access to the asylum procedure. The case of Aegean islands is exemplary in this regard, as they have been transformed into extended containment zones where newly arrived migrants are blocked for a long time. Second, CONDISOBS identified several shortcomings that have undermined the overall success of relocation, particularly with respect to its ability to contribute to a fairer distribution of asylum seekers between member states. Most notably, the main weaknesses of relocation concern the eligibility criteria adopted to select relocation candidates, the discretion left to receiving member states in selecting migrants to be relocated, the overall opacity of these procedures and the imposition of the destination on candidates. Third, the study revealed that unauthorised mobility from countries like Greece and Italy towards other EU destinations continues, although most newly arrived migrants are now fingerprinted upon arrival in the hotspots. The persistence of (attempts of) border crossings across the Alps and along the Balkan route demonstrate that the hotspot approach and relocation do not stop unauthorised movements between member states. Instead, mobility is rather subject to increasingly violent border practices and forced to extremely dangerous routes.
