‘No signs’ of Middle East refugee surge but EU better prepared than 2015, Swedish minister says

There are “no signs” of an imminent surge of refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East to Europe, but past experiences show that “things can change very quickly”, Sweden’s Migration Minister Johan Forssell has told Euronews.

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“We cannot have what we had ten years ago. We cannot have another refugee crisis,” Forssell said, speaking following a gathering of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday.

“We are still struggling with many of the challenges and problems that we saw back in 2015,” Forssell added, referring to the year which saw more than a million people flee to Europe driven by conflict in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Minister Forssell also said that Europe has moved on from the “chaos” of its migration system ten years ago and is now more prepared to deal with a possible uptick in people seeking refuge on the continent.

He said a major reform of the EU’s migration and asylum policy agreed in 2023 and due to be implemented in June, known as the EU Pact on Migration, means the bloc is “better equipped” for future challenges.

The Pact establishes a system of “mandatory solidarity” in which southern states more exposed to migratory flows can relocate asylum seekers to other EU states or receive financial and operational support.

It also includes a crisis mechanism that could be triggered in the case of a sudden and massive arrival of refugees.

The UN’s migration agency, the IOM, has warned of a displacement risk after the US and Israel attacked Iran over the weekend, sparking relentless Iranian retaliation and a spiralling regional conflict.

More than 19 million people are already displaced internally due to conflict, violence and disasters, making the region vulnerable to further instability, the IOM said.

Sweden leading push to return more refugees convicted of crimes

During Thursday’s meeting of EU interior ministers, Forssell also presented a Swedish-led initiative to facilitate the expulsion of refugees convicted of serious sexual crimes from EU states, by changing the way that a 1951 treaty is applied.

Sweden wants new guidelines on how the 1951 Refugee Convention is applied, in order to allow the “small number” of refugees who have committed such crimes to be returned to their home countries.

“A majority of refugees and migrants contribute positively to our communities (…) However, a small number commit serious crimes that could threaten support for domestic protection space and asylum systems, hence negatively affect law-abiding refugees and migrants, which in turn risks undermining the very foundation of our societies,” a Swedish non-paper presented to EU ministers, and seen by Euronews, reads.

Referring to a Swedish case in which a Court of Appeal blocked the return of an individual sentenced to four years in prison for rape, Forssell described the situation as “outrageous.”

He said the plan would need to “take into consideration” the legal principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits countries from sending a refugee or asylum seeker back to a country where they could face war or persecution.

“But what I think is outrageous, and I think most people agree with me, is the fact that someone who has committed rape, sentenced to four years in prison, it’s insane that he is not sentenced to expulsion,” he said.

“So we need to take one thing at a time here. And in order for this to happen, we need to change the guidelines.”