A key component of the People Flow migration proposal of Theo Veenkamp and his associates is that of ‘international transit centres’ for asylum-seekers, and ‘protection in regions of refugee origin’. This is similar to the new policy approach of the British government which seeks to establish ‘protected zones’ in third countries and to regionalise asylum processing in the future.
The aim is to improve reception conditions in regions of origin and to transfer refugee status determination procedures from Europe to those regions. Those persons granted asylum could then be allowed to travel to Europe in an orderly manner.
The dangers of a regional solution
A striking shortcoming in both the Demos / openDemocracy and the governmental proposals is the lack of awareness of the actual human rights environment and quality of asylum in most countries that host refugees in the developing world. Moreover, these proposals say little about recent experiences in processing refugee claims in regions of refugee origin; and they are silent about the ethical and political implications of shifting more of the asylum burden from wealthy and stable western states to poor and unstable states in regions of refugee origin.
