He terrorist that last Monday he murdered two Swedish citizens in Brussels was a Tunisian who had been in Europe for 12 years irregularly. He had been in Italy, was imprisoned and expelled from Sweden and ended up in Brussels, where he not only requested asylum, but on at least one occasion began the paperwork to register. On the continent there are more cases like him, including veterans of the jihad hardened in Syria and trained in the Caliphate. And although there are legal mechanisms to force his expulsion and return to the countries of origin, it is not always done, it is often done poorly or the track is lost without much effort to avoid it. That is the “intolerable” situation that the EU now says it wants to definitively stop.
“It is not time to point the finger at anyone, but the case of the Brussels terrorist must be a wake-up call and a turning point. He had been here irregularly since 2011, even though Tunisia is a country that collaborates in returns. We have to improve internal coordination. The good news is that we have the legislation ready. The previous one is from 2008 and our proposals are on the table, I hope we can start the trilogues now and finish them during the Spanish presidency to have a appropriate returns system. One with 27 different models is not efficient,” EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said this Thursday at the conclusion of the meeting of the ministers of the sector in Luxembourg.
Today in the Grand Duchy there has been a lot of talk about the issue. Sweden has organized a breakfast with several countries that have been victims of jihadism in recent years and later, during lunch, the ministers addressed it under the presidency of the Spanish Fernando Grande-Marlaska. Right now the legislation, which is 15 years old, allows expulsions of those who are considered a serious threat. But the new Directive proposal, part of the entire Migration Pact package that has been negotiated for years, establishes that it is not only possible, but mandatory for everyone. It is not enough to expel a neighbor, to get rid of the problem, but outside the Union.
“Right now people who pose a security threat and have received a return order can be asked to leave the country voluntarily. We need to change this urgently. We, the European Commissionwe have proposed that if a person poses a threat to national security, member states have the power to force them to march,” said the president of the Commission on Wednesday, Ursula Von der Leyenin a joint appearance with the prime ministers of Belgium and Sweden.
Commissioner Johansson, who reminded her that this year have increased by 20% “returns of those who do not have the right to be here compared to last year”, has called an emergency meeting for this Friday with the different member states “to ensure that those who pose risks can be returned to their countries of origin. It must be a priority,” he assured. Likewise, he has invited governments to develop a pilot project to apply the spirit of those standards that are currently being discussed. “Member States can now speed up the processes and immediately return those who pose a threat. With our proposal it will be mandatory because whoever is a threat is a threat to everyone. It would be good to start the trilogues soon, but in the meantime, the States can agree even if it is not mandatory in the legislation. We can work on a pilot project,” he said.