The European Union and Afghanistan have struck a deal to send back thousands of Afghan refugees whom the EU considers economic migrants ineligible for asylum or refugee status despite the ongoing conflict in the South Asian country.
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The European Council, which represents the 28 EU member states, said the deal reflects the commitment of both sides "to step up their cooperation on addressing and preventing irregular migration, and on the return of irregular migrants, who do not fulfil the conditions for staying in the EU."
The EU is legally obliged to admit people fleeing war and persecution but Brussels controversially classifies Afghanistan a "safe country" and can turn back Afghans on the basis that they are “economic migrants” fleeing by choice and not for their lives.
Meanwhile, the European bloc – which is scrambling to deal with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II – is alleged to have blackmailed the Afghan government using aid, according to a leaked memo from the deal.
The Guardian newspaper reported last week that the EU had issued an ultimatum to Afghanistan to accept 80,000 deportees or lose economic assistance.
“This is putting unreasonable pressure on the Afghan government, which is not able to respond to such numbers,” said Timor Sharan, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan in The Guardian.
On the eve of the conference, London-based Amnesty International called for the EU to respect its international obligations to genuine refugees.
"It would be inadmissible that any agreement forged in Brussels makes financial assistance for Afghanistan conditional on the Afghan government’s cooperation to accept the mission and return of asylum seekers," Amnesty's Said Horia Mosadiq said in a statement.
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However, EU officials have denied that pledges of aid depend on the Kabul government accepting the return of tens of thousands of Afghans from an overstretched Europe.
"The European Union and Afghanistan reached an important political arrangement yesterday, the so-called Joint Way Forward on migration issues," European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told a news briefing in Brussels.
That was the same rhetoric the bloc used when facing criticism over its refugee deportation deal with Turkey earlier this year in which the EU promised billions of dollars in aid to Turkey in return for accepting refugees reaching Greece’s shores.
More than 10 percent of the entire Afghan population have been displaced following the U.S. invasion in 2001. Before the war in Syria started, Afghans were the biggest group of refugees worldwide.
The International Organization for Migration says 258,186 migrants arrived in Europe by the end of July this year, as opposed to the 219,854 refugees last year during the same time frame. In the first eight months of this year, the estimated refugee fatality has been 3,176, compared with the 2,754 who died from January to August last year.