Will Europeans Force Africa to Take Migrants Back Home?

Amid rising tensions between EU members, authorities are looking into the possibility to send thousands of Africans, who don’t meet the asylum seeker’s requirements, back home, as over 800,000 people have come to Europe using sea routes this year.

European leaders addressed the problem of migrant inflow to the block states at the summit in Malta on Wednesday, stressing that those who are looking for jobs in Europe should be deported to their homelands.

But differentiating real refugees from economic migrants is far more complicated issue than it might look at the first sight, as, according to AP reports, "many deliberately arrive without documents and must wait months before they are taken back."

The EU leaders have stepped up with an "Action Plan" blueprint, suggesting that African leaders have to actively "cooperate with the EU on return and admission, notably on travel documentation."

But the head of the African Union argued that Europeans’ attempts to deal with migrant flow quickly would lead to construction of "reception centers," in which people are kept until they are proved to be asylum seekers or deported.

"[W]hatever we call them, will become de-facto detention centers," AU chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma claimed, slamming some EU states that in her opinion have taken a "fortress approach" regarding migration issues.

Zuma pointed out that women and children would be endangered in such centers.

Mahamadou Issoufou, the president of Niger, part of a major route for migrants going to Europe, said that security measures at places would be barely efficient, as the key problem forcing people to leave their homes – poverty – will remain unsolved.

So far, during the summit the EU signed an agreement with Ethiopia, which is used as a hub by migrants moving to Europe. Under the terms of the deal, Addis Ababa can now use money from a 1.8 billion euro trust fund.

Meanwhile, tensions are building within the EU, reviving old conflicts between some of the block’s countries. For instance, a simmering territorial dispute between Ljubljana and Zagreb has been sparked again, once Slovenia started construction of a barbed wire fence on Croatia’s territory.

Since Hungary had shut down its borders with Slovenia in October, over 170,000 migrants trying to reach Western Europe have arrived to tiny state.

Sweden is tightening border control measures amid a growing flow of migrants. This year, more than 200,000 people are expected to reach Scandinavian country.  And the flow will be even bigger in the upcoming years. According to estimates, by 2017 another three million will arrive to the EU.