Poland-Belarus Border
CCME has since 1999 offered an exchange platform for churches in Europe on questions of asylum and refugee protection in general. It has also articulated churches positions in the process of creating a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) in the member states of the EU towards EU policy makers. It had made suggestions for SAFE PASSAGES to and through Europe.
While the creation of the CEAS has initially led to an improvement of the situation of asylum seekers and refugees, the focus of has since 2015 more and more shifted to the protection of borders as the paramount aim of EU policy.
Recently agreed legislation will enter into force in the next years and foresees more measures of keeping persons seeking asylum outside the EU (e.g. cooperation with countries like Turkey, Tunisia or Lybia) or at the external border of the EU, most likely in prison like conditions. This will make the conditions of those trying to seek asylum in the EU more precarious and dangerous, in some cases leading to deaths at the border. There is also reason for concern about the increasing brutalisation of border patrolling by state actors and the ongoing violation of refugees´ rights by “pushbacks ” at the EU s borders. While CCME recognises the legitimacy of borders and guarding borders, it is concerned about the human costs of current practice and the undermining effective access to asylum in the EU.
Against this background, CCME seeks to make the ongoing practice and new legislation more widely known among members, to discuss the experiences and concerns about practice and legislation and discuss ideas for harm reduction measures by churches in Europe.
Looking at a more long-term perspective, CCME seeks to develop alternatives to the current asylum system in Europe – based on the principle that protecting people should be a higher priority than protecting borders.
Such a system would be built on the principles of global and European solidarity, justice and human dignity.
In a process with members and external experts starting in autumn 2024, CCME seeks to establish a blueprint what legal, political and practical measures need to be taken to set up such a system and what the financial preconditions would need to be.
