When the United Kingdom first announced its plan to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda, the reaction across Europe was mixed amusement and quiet curiosity.
Many European policymakers scoffed that it was an eccentric British experiment doomed to collapse under the weight of legal challenge. Others wondered, privately, whether the model might just offer an escape from the seemingly intractable problem of uncontrolled migration across the Mediterranean and the Balkans.
Fast-forward to this summer and Brussels is debating whether a continental version of the Rwanda scheme could form part of the EU’s wider migration pact. The idea is deceptively simple: those arriving illegally on European shores would be transferred to a partner country outside Europe, where their asylum claims would be processed. If successful, it would break the “pull factor” of immediate settlement and deter future arrivals.
But critics are already sharpening their knives. Clare Kumar of ODI Europe has warned that replicating the British model on a larger scale faces formidable political, legal and financial hurdles. Strip away the rhetoric and she is almost certainly correct.
A legal minefield
The most immediate obstacle is legal. The European Court of Human Rights and the EU’s own Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantee extensive protections for asylum seekers. Attempting to transfer migrants to a third country raises the obvious question of whether that state can be deemed “safe”. Britain has spent two years in litigation on precisely that point, with the Supreme Court ruling the Rwanda plan unlawful until iron-clad guarantees could be offered.
For the EU, which operates under even tighter human rights obligations, the bar is higher still. Every relocation agreement would face challenge in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, where judges are unlikely to view offshoring charitably. Even if one partner country passed legal muster, the precedent could be dragged out in the courts for years, leaving the system paralysed before it ever began.
Politics and public opinion
Then comes the politics. The Rwanda model plays well in theory to electorates demanding tougher border control. But agreeing on a common EU scheme would require consensus among 27 member states, a feat Brussels has consistently failed to achieve. Hungary and Poland resist any system perceived as burden-sharing; Mediterranean states demand greater solidarity; northern members prefer to free-ride on the efforts of others.
Moreover, any deal with a partner country outside Europe would instantly become a domestic political football. Imagine the optics of striking an agreement with Tunisia, Morocco or Egypt, complete with images of asylum seekers being flown out under armed guard. The European Parliament, which must approve any such arrangement, is hardly in the mood to wave through a measure that would be denounced as inhumane by human rights groups across the bloc.
The cost problem
Even if the legal and political obstacles were overcome, the financial arithmetic looks grim. Britain’s scheme is expected to cost at least £370 million for the first 300 migrants – more than £1 million per head. Rwanda has insisted on upfront payments to build capacity and maintain facilities, regardless of how many arrivals are sent.
Scale that to the European level, where irregular arrivals topped 380,000 last year, and the bill becomes astronomical. Few EU taxpayers will relish footing the cost of flying asylum seekers halfway across the world only to have them return under appeal. The EU’s migration budget is already stretched by patrols in the Mediterranean and support for frontline states. There is little appetite for writing blank cheques to African or Middle Eastern partners in exchange for promises that may prove unenforceable.
Alternatives in play
It is not that Europe is blind to the need for deterrence. Italy’s deal with Albania, under which Tirana hosts temporary processing centres, is a more limited experiment already under way. The EU has also poured money into border controls in North Africa, from the Libyan coastguard to Tunisian policing. Yet these arrangements stop short of permanent offshoring of asylum claims.
A more realistic path may lie in accelerating asylum procedures within Europe itself – swiftly returning those with no right to stay, while integrating genuine refugees more effectively. It is bureaucratic and politically thankless, but arguably more workable than betting on grand schemes that fall apart in court or in parliament.
The symbolism trap
Part of the attraction of the Rwanda plan is its symbolism. Politicians want to signal control, to demonstrate that the era of unmanaged flows is over. But symbolism does not run an asylum system. What looks bold on a press release often unravels when tested against law, finance and public opinion.
For Europe, copying Britain’s Rwanda gamble risks falling into precisely that trap. It may provide a rhetorical shield against populist challengers in the short term, but in practice it is unlikely to stem arrivals, let alone restore public confidence. Indeed, repeated failures could fuel cynicism further, strengthening those same populist voices the scheme is meant to appease.
A cautionary tale
The UK’s Rwanda adventure has already become a cautionary tale – eye-wateringly expensive, bogged down in litigation, and yet to fly a single migrant. For Brussels to push ahead with a continental version would be to ignore those lessons. Europe’s migration crisis is real, but the solution will not be found in photo-op partnerships with distant states. It will be found, if at all, in the hard grind of enforcing borders, streamlining procedures, and rebuilding public trust step by step.
Until then, the Rwanda plan will remain what it has always been: a bold-sounding idea destined to collapse under its own contradictions.
Main Image: – Own work, http://zpravy.idnes.cz/reportaz-z-uprchlickeho-tabora-calais-dx6-/zahranicni.aspx?c=A150617_224603_zahranicni_mlb
