Sputnik discussed this with Professor Endre Sik, director of the Center for Refugee and Migration Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Sputnik: What are your thoughts on this legislation, do you think that this is a good idea and will it really make a difference in solving the migration issue?
Endre Sik: This is an experiment, I don't think a minor change in legislation will solve the migration problem, however, the European Union should try various ways, I would even say a combination and recombination of old and new solutions to cope with the new phase of this old problem, meaning if there are less and less refugees and migrants who are entering the EU, those who are there and cannot be sent back home cause continuous problems, so they have to find ways how to reduce this tension.
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Sputnik: We talked about difficulties of repatriation can you tell us how widespread this problem is? And what is it exactly that the countries are not doing?
Endre Sik: It is very difficult to generalize, because country by country and, actually, sometimes on the basis of bilateral relations between countries, this can be very different, therefore there's no general solution, common solution, this is very sensitive diplomatic issue that should be, I think quite rightly, on behalf of the EU to try to renegotiate and again renegotiate this issue and that is including another issue such as we saw with the Turkish solution and the African countries they are very different reactions and very different origins than the European Union.
Sputnik: Of course this has been criticized by some by saying this is a very Trump-like measure what can you say about that point of view?
Endre Sik: First of all I like Trump as a reference point and I think it is quite correct because this seems to be an innovative idea, if I want to criticize it I would say this is an ad hoc without any careful research and then they had this idea to change policy, so it really can be called a Trump-like action, but I think what is important that they try to do it various things and experiment with various things, and of course these innovative ideas will be criticized and in a way should be criticized by other partners who are less enthusiastic with ad hoc ideas, but an experiment always has critics, perhaps, this just is a minor part of a series of competitive games, but perhaps not even those who came up with this idea really thought it through seriously and that it should be put into practice, it's just part of negotiations.
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Sputnik: What is the extent of the problem of countries not accepting failed asylum seekers for repatriation, how many people are we talking about?
Endre Sik: I don't know the exact numbers and I don't think that anyone knows the exact numbers, but definitely this is a major issue and this will remain a major issue because time is not on the European Union's side, because the longer people are kept in limbo, the more they will feel disappointed and become angry, and become militant, and become easy targets for recruitment attempts, so this is a major problem.
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Sputnik: What do you think of the fact that EU now is turning this experiment instead of trying to increase migration quotas for EU members, does this show we're moving toward to a new approach?
Endre Sik: This is an experiment and I don't think this is a major change in policy.
The views and opinions expressed by Endre Sik are those of the speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
