Health Emergency and Asylum Law in the European Union

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in Europe has led to the further deterioration of the crisis concerning the application of the provisions of European Union (EU) asylum law in most Member States. Accordingly, this article aims to shed light on the impact that the health emergency is having on the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This requires a twofold legal analysis. First, the article discusses whether health emergencies, like that caused by COVID-19, should affect the scope of States' obligations stemming from the CEAS, such as the principle of non-refoulement and access to asylum procedures. In this connection, it reviews, in light of international law obligations and the EU border control regime, the policy responses and legislative measures adopted by EU Member States during the first few weeks of the pandemic that resulted in the closure of borders to asylum seekers. Secondly, the article investigates whether the CEAS legal toolbox contains adequate provisions that can be applied in emergency situations. Thus it analyses the impact of the health emergency on reception conditions for asylum seekers. Based on the findings of this twofold analysis, it is concluded that certain rights, such as the right to seek asylum, cannot be suspended - not even during a situation of health emergency - and that it is all the more urgent to redesign a CEAS that takes account of the challenges posed by future situations of health emergency.

Lampedusa, football and COVID-19: transitions at the border and the role of sport

Lampedusa is a remote Italian island, known as a border zone and European point of entry for many asylum-seekers coming by boat from North Africa. This research seeks to understand the value of sport in Lampedusa for its local and migrant population, in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with experts from the local community. Results show that sport in Lampedusa is often synonymous with football. Football has always been informally practiced in the island but has proved to be of practical social value to both asylum-seekers and the local population. The pandemic has however interrupted the playful interactions occurring between asylum-seekers and the local youth. Findings show that the interactions and connections enabled through football can be fundamental for asylum-seekers to find direction in their journey but since the start of the pandemic, these interactions have become limited, and serve exclusively as temporary moments of relief. These changes have also impacted the local population, anxious about the transition occurring within the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in worries about the condition of the asylum-seeking population who are proceeding in their European journey without the assistance of the locals.

The European Union’s crises and the resilience of EU societies

Resilience is one of the most popular and yet ambiguous topics in the social sciences. It has been examined not only in an individual sense but also in relation to communities. The European Union (EU) has faced several crises in the 2000s that have shown the level of resilience of EU societies. This paper discusses community resilience within the framework of the EU’s recent crises to examine how EU societies have coped with adversity. Specifically, it analyses competences and common policies at the EU level in relation to resilience and crises within the EU. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Does the Corona crisis lead to a displacement of media attention for the refugee and climate crises? A case study on issue attention processes

In der vorgelegten Studie werden klassische Annahmen zur Dramatisierungstendenz medialer Krisenberichterstattung bei gleichzeitiger Verdrängung übriger gesellschaftlich relevanter Themen auf den Prüfstand gestellt. Anwendungsbeispiel ist die Corona-Thematisierung (September 2019 bis Dezember 2020) und ihr Einfluss auf die Thematisierungsprozesse von «Klima» und «Geflüchtete». Anhand einer multivariat dynamischen Zeitreihenanalyse von 437 784 Onlineartikeln wird als übergeordnete Hypothese untersucht, ob Themenverdrängung festgestellt werden kann. Die Mechanismen der Verdrängung werden dann differenziert als phasenabhängige Aufmerksamkeitsverschiebung und als direkte also zeitgleiche Themenverdrängung untersucht. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen die Annahme der Themenkonkurrenz und zeigen je nach Thematisierungsphase unterschiedliche Verdrängungsprozesse. Im Trend hat Corona die Thematisierung der beiden anderen Krisenphänomene zwar nicht komplett verdrängt, aber sehr deutlich reduziert. Bezüglich der direkten Verdrängung sind Effekte messbar, aber eher klein. Als Fazit zeigt sich Themenverdrängung im Onlinejournalismus hier also eher als Effekt der Fokusverschiebung öffentlicher Aufmerksamkeit als ein Problem direkter Verdrängung aufgrund beschränkten Berichterstattungsraums. In the following, classical hypotheses on the dramatization tendency of media crisis reporting and the assumed simultaneous suppression of other socially relevant topics are put to the test. For this case study, we rely on news reporting during the first year of the COVID19 pandemic (September 2019 to December 2020) to evaluate its influence on the thematization processes of «climate» and «refugees.» Based on a multivariate dynamic time series analysis of 437 784 online articles, we first confirm whether overall issue displacement can be detected and then delve deeper by differentiating into two possible mechanisms of displacement: 1) as a phase-dependent but global shift in attention and 2) as a direct i.e., simultaneous effect pointing toward editorial competition. Results from our analysis confirm the overarching hypothesis of topic competition, clearly showing displacement processes depending on the thematization phase. Globally, while not being rendered invisible, media attention for the other two crisis phenomena was reduced significantly following the onset of the pandemic. Regarding direct displacement, effects are measurable, but rather small. We conclude that the displacement of media attention seems to be attributable more to a shift in public attention and overall trends than to classic assumptions based on limited resources in the editorial process. © 2022. the authors. This work is licensed under the “Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivatives 4.0 International” license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

A sea of difference? Australian and Italian approaches to irregular migration and seaborne asylum seekers

While Australian and Italian policies on irregular maritime migration are widely debated, they have seldom been examined together, a gap in the literature that this article addresses with a comprehensive comparative analysis. Informed by theories on irregular migrants' reception, it traces the two countries' policies between 2000 and early 2022, and examines their many convergences and few discrepancies through a framework comprising (i) domestic pressures, (ii) international pressures, and (iii) the choice between the moral imperative and national interest. It finds that contrasting socio-political characteristics domestically explain why Canberra and Rome have at times adopted opposite policies, whereas comparable international pressures clarify the implementation of similar ones. It also sheds light on the contradiction in Australia's middle power identity and 'good international citizenship', and on Italy's torn posture betwixt great power politics and humanitarian efforts. In 2020-2022, their policy continuity amidst the COVID-19 pandemic is worthy of notice.

Re-racialisation of migrants and the 'refugee crisis' during COVID-19

This chapter provides a brief description on re-racialisation of migrants and the 'refugee crisis' during COVID-19. The world in 2020 is radically different from the year before. A major sociopolitical transformation due to an 'exogeneous' factor has begun. COVID-19 has brought the celebrated 'world on the move' to a standstill. We could imagine neither the scale nor the depth of the panic and global state of emergency against what might be termed "miasmic deviants". We are in the middle of accentuated processes of exclusion, racialisation, marginalisation and expulsion of migrants, refugees and 'the damned of the earth'. New borders and bordering processes generated, as old ones are invigorated. These dynamics have rekindled 'old' and 'new' forces in Europe and the globe, bringing about the collapse of consensus in politics and generating a 'politics of hate'. Dissensus reigns and migration and asylum are at the heart of these processes. The chapter primarily focuses on these processes in the eastern Mediterranean. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Fertility of nationals and foreigners in Spain, Italy, and Greece during and after the economic recession and refugee crisis

This article provides an overview of trends in fertility of foreign and national women in Greece, Spain, and Italy during the last decade and before the Covid pandemic. It focuses on the fertility of foreigners and compares this with that of `nationals'. The main analysis focuses on a period marked, firstly, by the economic recession and stagnation, and then by the recent wave of the `refugee crisis'. Foreigner fertility in the three south Mediterranean countries differs significantly from that of nationals, with the former having higher fertility rates and lower mean age at childbearing. However, although foreigners make a large contribution to births, their impact on period fertility (total fertility rate or TFR) is limited. At the same time, although the fertility of both groups decreased during the first years of the recession, foreigner TFRs fell faster in both absolute and relative terms in Italy and Greece. However, after 2014, the foreigner period fertility among the three countries differs as a relative stabilisation is observed in Spain and Italy, while indicators rise in Greece. This divergence is due to the various composition changes in the settled after-2014 foreigners in the three countries and the strong recovery of foreigner births in Greece (as fertility in Greece was much more affected by the recession).