Starting in 2026, the European Union has entered the phase of full implementation of its new legislative framework on migration and asylum, which was adopted in 2024 after years of negotiations within EU institutions. This framework represents a profound shift in the European approach to migration, redefining the relationship with migrants and asylum seekers through an administrative–security lens based on deterrence, acceleration, and deportation, rather than protection, integration, and respect for fundamental rights.
This framework relies on accelerating screening and processing procedures at the EU’s external borders. New arrivals, including asylum seekers, are subjected to fast-track procedures involving identity verification, security screening, and health assessments, alongside the collection of biometric data in shared European information systems. These procedures are often carried out in closed border zones or facilities of a restrictive nature, amounting in practice to detention, amid limited judicial oversight and restricted access to legal assistance. This approach raises serious concerns regarding respect for the rights to liberty, human dignity, and personal data protection, as enshrined in European and international legal instruments.
In parallel, the new framework strengthens accelerated asylum procedures that, in a large number of cases, lead to swift rejection decisions followed by the near-automatic enforcement of deportation measures, with reduced opportunities for appeal and review. This effectively empties the right to asylum of its substance, transforming it into a formalistic procedure that fails to take into account the vulnerability of those seeking protection or the legal and humanitarian complexities associated with forced migration. Such an approach directly contradicts the principle of non-refoulement, a cornerstone of international refugee law, as well as the EU’s own legal commitments.
The European Union has also adopted a mechanism known as “mandatory solidarity” among Member States, ostensibly aimed at alleviating pressure on countries at the external borders. However, in its adopted form, this mechanism allows states to refuse the relocation of asylum seekers in exchange for financial contributions, turning solidarity into a purely administrative and financial instrument, stripping it of its humanitarian and rights-based substance, and entrenching structural inequalities in responsibility-sharing within the Union.
In the same context, the EU has expanded its use of the concept of “safe third countries” to include several countries of the southern neighborhood, including Tunisia. This enables the deportation of migrants and asylum seekers to these countries even in the absence of genuine legal or social ties. This approach raises serious legal and humanitarian concerns, particularly in light of documented reports on the deterioration of human rights, public freedoms, and trade union rights in several of these countries, as well as the absence of effective asylum systems capable of ensuring real protection for returnees.
From a trade union perspective, these policies cannot be separated from the realities of the European labor market, where migrant workers constitute a core workforce in vital sectors, often under precarious conditions and without adequate protection. Linking residence status to rigid administrative procedures and restricting access to legal protection pathways opens the door to increased exploitation and undeclared work, undermines fundamental labor rights—including the right to trade union organization and collective bargaining—and ultimately strengthens the informal economy rather than combating it.
There is growing concern that this legislative framework systematically ignores the standards established by the International Labour Organization on the protection of migrant workers, particularly ILO Conventions No. 97 and No. 143, and contradicts the decent work approach that should serve as a reference for European policies. Instead of addressing migration as a socio-economic phenomenon requiring integration policies and shared development, the European Union adopts a deterrent approach that places the burden of political and economic imbalances—both internal and external—on migrants themselves.
In this context, the year 2026 does not merely represent a technical phase of implementing new legislation, but marks a stage characterized by intensified deportations, the normalization of exceptional measures, and the redrawing of the legal boundaries of rights. This places trade union and human rights movements before a heightened responsibility to defend human dignity and labor rights, and to confront all policies that violate the principles of social justice, equality, and non-discrimination.
From a legal standpoint, this new framework presents clear conflicts with several binding international and European legal instruments. It contradicts the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, particularly with regard to the principle of non-refoulement. It also conflicts with ILO conventions on migrant workers, which oblige states to ensure equality of treatment, protection against exploitation, and the right to trade union organization. At the European level, this framework raises serious concerns in light of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights—especially regarding human dignity, the right to asylum, and protection against collective expulsion—as well as the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to an effective remedy and a fair trial.
On this basis, the Arab Trade Union Confederation calls on the European Union and its institutions to review these policies to ensure full compliance with international human rights and labor standards, to halt collective deportation practices, and to suspend the use of the “safe third country” designation until genuine protection conditions are guaranteed. The Confederation also stresses the need to integrate the labor and trade union dimension into migration policies and to ensure the separation of residence status from the employment relationship, thereby protecting migrant workers from coercion and exploitation and guaranteeing their right to trade union organization and collective bargaining without discrimination.
The Arab Trade Union Confederation emphasizes that migration is not a security issue, but a matter of social justice and shared development, and that human rights and labor rights are indivisible and must not stop at borders or be restricted by short-term political considerations.
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