In view of the arrival of thousands and thousands of people coming from war-torn countries such as Syria and from other places for reasons of persecutions, political or religious ideas, warring among ethnic groups or hunger, in September 2015, the European Union assigned European states the relocation of 170,000 individuals coming from Italy and Greece, as it was and still is to these two countries that the vast majority of these people arrive. In Italy alone, a total of 36,883 people have disembarked within the January 1, 2017 – April 27, 2017 period, as compared to the 27,058 from the same period in 2016. These are the figures.
Spain undertook the commitment to take in 8,456 people, a total of 876 having been received to date. One must bear in mind that hundreds of people additionally arrive in our country from the Mediterranean coasts, hundreds more entering Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco. But to meet the European commitment undertaken, we should be taking in 7,580 people from now up to this coming September. This last figure leads us to wonder where the problems or difficulties lie leading to the process of taking in these refugees being so complicated and the numbers so low in Spain.
To try to understand what the relocation process is like, the Ombudsman Institution has conducted a visit, with the help of Italy’s “National Guarantor of People Detained and Deprived of Freedom”, to Trapani, one of Italy’s four refugee hotspots. In Trapani, where 4,000 people have arrived over the course of 2017, a former detention centre has been remodelled for housing up to over 400 emigrants of those who disembark at the nearest ports. Here, medical check-ups and complex identification procedures are carried out prior to their -once again- being transferred to other centres from where they depart to European countries. The data from Italy shows that the majority of the people relocated are going to Germany, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Holland.
Everything leads us to think that the procedures for deciding, on one hand, as to the individuals, families and points of destination and, on the other, counting on the readiness of the receiving countries, all takes a long time. This seems to be the only explanation as to there having to be some reasons why solely 144 people of those having disembarked in Italy have reached Spain by April 12th, if they are not remaining more than two or three days after disembarking in the first location where they arrive The problem therefore seems to lie here and there: at the hotspots, at the second centres while waiting to be transferred and possibly in the availability and approval of the receiving state.
In Spain, given the way in which responsibility over these matters is divided up among the various administrations, it is evident that cooperation and agreements among the Ministry of the Interior, the Office of the Secretary General for Immigration, the Autonomous Communities and the Municipal Governments are indispensable for facilitating the arrivals and making the subsequent relocations possible. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in both Italy and Spain share this need and are appealing, in conjunction with the Ombudsman, for an agreement among institutions to make what has been promised come true.
