EU advice to asylum seekers? Go home

THE EU has unveiled an immigration plan dubbed ‘Fortress Europe’ – with one eurocrat saying asylum seekers on the bloc’s eastern border should ‘go home’ if they do not want to be settled nearby.

Officials struggled to stem the flow of thousands from Belarus last month before neighbouring Poland put up a makeshift wall.

Yesterday EU leaders bowed to pressure from their eastern edge with plans to allow Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to weaken migrants’ rights and detain refugees for longer. They will have up to four months to process asylum claims, up from four weeks now.

It is hoped the prospect of extended detention will deter those looking to reach Europe, after hardline Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko steered migrants from the Middle East and towards Europe as part of a long-running row with Brussels. In a blunt intervention last night, Margaritis Schinas, a European Commission vice-president and the EU’s migration chief, said: ‘If a migrant doesn’t want to apply for asylum in one of those three countries, they must apply in Belarus. If he doesn’t apply in Belarus either, he should go home.’

The proposals will mean migrants can only seek humanitarian protection in designated areas near the EU’s frontier with the former Soviet republic. Officials also want to make it easier to deport rejected claimants. The emergency rules, which would be in force for six months, must be approved by the 27 EU governments.

Amnesty International accused the EU of ‘dehumanising’ refugees and undermining their rights.