Main Features of the EU‘s Readmission Agreements

The EU has held the readmission agreement in the accordance with the 1951 Geneva Convention and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The people cannot be sent to a country where s/he would have come over any treatment out of the Convention and the Charter, even if s/he has entered as irregular migrant (European Commission, 2002b). The implementation of the repatriation of an irregular migrant differs from the expulsion and deportation. In fact, the repatriation is a kind of removal of the aliens from the territories. However, while the repatriation is based on an international treaty or agreement, the expulsion or deportation can be created by the national legislation.

Moreover, a state doesn‘t have to admit deported or expulsed third country national or a stateless person, contrary, a state which signed RA, should accept third-country nationals and stateless person according to the provisions of related agreements (Ekşi, 2016:5).

The repatriation has been the main tool for the undocumented people who do not have authority for staying in the country in the fight against the illegal/ irregular migration.

However, by the numbers of illegal migrants have risen, it has been realized that cooperation between member states is not enough to prevent the incomings, in this connection, cooperation with both origin and transit countries is compulsory for averting irregular migrants (Billet, 2010: 46).

According to the UNHCR Europe Monthly Report of January 2018, over 3 million people have applied for the asylum in the European states since 2015, and only 33 thousand asylum-seekers have been relocated in whether Greece or Italy (UNHCR, 2018a). According to this data, the EU has preferred the return of asylum-seekers even if they have been suitable for the refugee status. Since examinations of the applications have been concluded in short terms which have revealed that the status of these people has been examined shallowly and the EU has taken up for controlling the irregular migration out of its borders.

Obviously, the main instrument of the European migration policy is the readmission agreements between the member states and non-member states. The logic behind the agreements is to resend the people, who are residing within the EU irregularly, to the

third countries. The third countries are defined as the non-member states generally in treaties, however, in documents related to asylum or refugees, the third country statement is used for the country of origin or a safe country (European Parliament and of the Council, 2013).

The Community has been applying the RAs as a condition of any agreements with non- member countries since 1996. The ‗Readmission Clauses‘ has been replacing with the partnership, financial aid and accession agreements by the persistence of the EU (Billet, 2010:49).

After the Amsterdam Treaty, the Community had the authorization for regulating the asylum policies of the EU, and the primary legal regulations of the EU institutions took the place of intergovernmental cooperation. (Billet, 2010:47). That made the RAs more binder than previous bilateral agreements of member states. Since the RAs have been a part of the EU acquis instead of a national legislation and the RAs with the EU have been supranational over the member states, as well.

However, after the Seville Summit, a tendency in the Community occurred as promoting foreign relations with the third countries in the framework of readmission agreements. Especially the EU has kept the accession as its ‗Golden Carrot‘ for the possible future members of the EU. Moreover, the candidate states or the signatory sides try to achieve the expectations of the EU on the RA as the EU criteria. In Summits the Community claimed that any supports for the return of the third country nationals would have provided by the EU and the promotion of the third countries to readmission process would have been considered by the community. For this reason, it can be said that the readmission policy has been integrated into the foreign policy of the EU with the third countries.

The soul of the RAs depends on the equality of the signatory parties; however, the RAs are asymmetric in the point of burden – sharing because of the provisions, only one party can benefit from the agreements. The third countries are aware of this inequality, while they are signing the RAs with the EU, for this reason, they are looking for postponing the entry into force (Ekşi, 2016: 19). On the other hand, the EU has attempted to make the RAs more attractive for the third countries via financial aids,

access to economic organizations and unions. That contributes third countries‘

economic burdens, but the incentive is lack of both the political and social aspects of the migration (Küçük, 2008).

4.2.2.1. Externalization

The externalization of migration control is defined as the actions in the external territories of the EU to prevent irregular migration and transfer the responsibility to the countries of origin and transit by the François Crépeau who is the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants (Crépeau, Article 55, 2013). According to his report, the EU has used the readmission agreements as an instrument of the ‗externalization‘ of border control and sending asylum-seekers has caused the disregard of the fundamental rights of the migrants (Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, A/HRC/29/36).

By the RAs, the Community enjoins the neighboring and third countries to retake the irregularly entered people. The EU gives the responsibility of illegal entrances to the third countries. Therefore, if they kept the border control properly, these people wouldn‘t enter to the European member countries. This policy makes the admitting countries the border controllers of the EU (Billet, 2010:74).

4.2.2.2. Securitization

In the 1990s the migration changed and instead of the migration with the aim of working or family reunification, the irregular migration rose because of the conflicts and political changes. At the beginning of 1990 the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Yugoslavian Civil War and the Gulf War broke out and the EU completed the political integration, afterward, the enlargement brought the EU borders closer to unstable North Africa and the Middle East. The Second-generation RAs‘ main objective is to conduct the ‗cordon sanitaire‘ towards the East and Central European border. (Crepeau cited in Roig & Huddleston, 2007:367). The ‗cordon sanitare‘ is to establish an invisible border via the strict regulations and policies for keeping the immigrants out of the EU (Mulcany, 2011:113).

Securitization is to make a certain policy area as an extraordinary threat target and to evaluate out of legitimate and formal procedures (Orsam Rapor 123, 2012:13). The securitization of the EU migration policy is the conventional procedure of the EU towards migrants. After the Second World War, the migrants were the main components of the economic growth, the migrants have been considered as the threats to national security. For this reason, the community has assessed the migration issue in the security framework and tried to hinder the irregular entrances by the security precautions.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks caused to be in attention against to foreigners all over the world. After some terrorist attacks in Europe, the more restricted policies led inflows of foreigners to increase, especially as the EU was trying to make Europe the area of justice, freedom, and security. After 9/11, the EU tended to adopt more security- oriented policies related to the asylum and migration. The main objective of the