TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has defended proposed changes to the European Union’s asylum policy which have been described by some as similar to the UK’s controversial deal with Rwanda. 

The policy has emerged today as a key proposal from the centre-right European People’s Party, of which Fine Gael is a member, ahead of the European Parliament elections in June. 

In the final draft of the group’s manifesto which is being finalised today in Bucharest, the group plans to call for further migration reforms in a bid to quell the rise of the far-right. 

Under the proposals, deals would be made with non-EU countries allowing for the deportation of asylum seekers to “safe” third countries where their applications would be processed instead. 

Last year, asylum applications in EU countries surged to over one million, reaching a seven-year high, with Syrians and Afghans remaining at the top of the list.

Rules approved in December aim to share hosting responsibilities across the 27-country bloc and to speed up deportations of irregular migrants deemed ineligible to stay.

Varadkar said today that Fine Gael has played a role in making sure that the proposed policy would stipulate that anything that is done has to be in line with the Geneva Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Speaking to reporters in Bucharest he said “deport” is not the correct term to use and rejected the notion that the proposal is similar to the UK’s Rwanda deal. 

Under the UK’s deal with Rwanda, some asylum seekers arriving in the UK would be sent to Rwanda to have their applications processed with no right to return to the UK. 

“It’s not the European version of what the UK is proposing in Rwanda in my view, it’d be something very different,” he said.

“What is contained in the EU Asylum Pact, which Ireland has signed up to is the possibility that asylum seekers could be processed in a third country.

“For example, we know Italy has made an agreement recently with Albania that people seeking asylum could be processed there. And we have an EU arrangement with Tunisia which I’m not a huge fan of, but it’s more in that space,” he said.

Appeasing the far-right?

When asked if the proposal actually feeds into the demands of the far-right, the Taoiseach said: “Look, I doubt it.”

He said a distinction needs to be made between people who come to Ireland and Europe legally and those who come illegally.

He said we need to be “more firm” with those who come illegally.

Specifically, he referred to people who “use our asylum and international protection system to come here as economic migrants when we have a work permit system that can be used”.

Fine Gael MEP Frances Fitzgerald also took issue with calling the proposal a “Rwanda-style deal”. 

“We want to be humane, we want to be responsible. And this is a social issue that is not going to go away.

“Let’s be clear on this, there are no simple solutions. [The aim] is to try and have a reasonably good framework all around Europe that is fair,” she told The Journal.

Fitzgerald highlighted the fact that some EU member states have had to deal with much greater migration flows than others. 

“I was down in Italy, and I was in Greece when the migration was at a high in 2015, and 2016. And it hasn’t been fair on frontline member states,” she said.

Fitzgerald, who is a former Minister for Justice, said Ireland is now facing what many other countries have faced over many years.

“My main point is that we have to do the assessments as quickly as possible. So people are not in Ireland and not here for several years in limbo,” she said.

The Dublin MEP said she is “appalled” at arson attacks of properties earmarked for asylum seeker accommodation in Ireland and said the Government should do everything in its power to support the asylum seekers who have been forced to sleep on the streets because of a shortage of accommodation. 

With reporting from AFP.