Kassel political scientist: Lampedusa tragedy a consequence of EU policy

Buckel, who holds a professorship in political theory at the University of Kassel, sharply criticizes the EU's refugee policy: "Over the past 15 years, the EU has systematically expanded its border protection at the southern border without taking into account the rights of refugees, which are enshrined in international human rights and refugee protection agreements. To this end, it has effectively shifted border protection to the southern Mediterranean countries and, above all, to the North and West African states," said Buckel, who is both a political scientist and a lawyer and recently presented a study on European migration policy. She sees not only Italy as responsible, but also the other EU states, including Germany: "What appears to be an Italian policy is a European one. Or you could also say: the interests of German domestic policy are secured in Mauritania, Morocco, Libya or Senegal."

Border protection itself is the result of a massive wealth gap between Europe and the countries of Africa and Asia, the Kassel-based scholar said. "This prosperity gap, in turn, is the result of a world resource order that began with colonialism, in which the development of productivity and prosperity in Europe is based on unlimited - politically and legally secured - access to resources, space and labor assets elsewhere."

In her book Welcome to Europe, Buckel uses two case studies to examine the ostensibly legal but actually political disputes over European migration policy. One of these two case studies is the Hirsi vs Italy case, in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2012 on a case of African refugees who were intercepted in the Mediterranean by the Italian coast guard and taken to Libya. "The ruling in the Hirsi case was internationally groundbreaking and banned the previous practice of deporting people back to North and West Africa from the high seas, circumventing refugee law norms," explains Buckel, who draws a connection to the recent Lampedusa tragedy: "Since then, European states have been trying to find other loopholes. You can see this in Lampedusa also in the fact that fishermen are still forbidden to rescue refugees from drowning and bring them ashore, and that the rescued refugees themselves face investigations for violating current Italian migration law."

Prof. Dr. Buckel is available to answer questions.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Sonja Buckel
University of Kassel
Head of Department of Political Theory
Tel.: +49 561 804 1961
E-mail: sonja.buckel[at]uni-kassel[dot]de

Sonja Buckel: Welcome to Europe - The Limits of European Migration Law. Juridical disputes about the "state project Europe". Verlag transcript,  September 2013, 372 p., hardcover, €33.80, ISBN 978-3-8376-2486-1.