The Humanitarian Crisis in Lebanon and the EU: Refugees, Displaced Persons and Competence

The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon continues with no obvious end in sight. According to the European Commission by 25 July more than 40 000 evacuees had been transferred to Cyprus.

Between 17 and 21 July, 27 ships operating under various flags brought some 18 000 evacuees from Lebanon to Cyprus. A further 13 ships were expected to arrive over the weekend. By air, some 23 491 evacuees have landed in Cyprus, of which 12,491 are EU citizens. On 22 July, 5 197 EU citizens and 2 630 non-EU citizens remained in Cyprus. According to UNHCR more than 150,000 persons have fled to Syria, leaving aside the internally displaced persons within Lebanon.

According to sources on the ground Cyprus is completely saturated as regards the capacities of its ports and airports. The Cypriot government has been requesting Member States and international organisations to coordinate among themselves and with the Cypriot authorities regarding the arrival, debarcation and movement of ships and planes on its territory. There is a sense of chaos which arises from the European Commission’s press release of 25 July regarding the arrangements. At the moment it is planned that some boats be diverted to the Turkish coast, in particular the port of Mercine.

Who are these displaced persons? Some are nationals exclusively of EU Member States. Many more appear to be dual nationals of Lebanon and another EU country. There also appear to be many Lebanese who are not nationals of an EU Member State but have a right of residence in one. Many more people are family members of either of these three groups which family members appear to be third country nationals (mainly Lebanese). Others are third country nationals without EU links such as those from the Americas or Asia who happened to be in Lebanon at the time the bombardment began.

What does this mean? It means, in law, that this is a highly mixed flow. There are people who can expect to find their way fairly rapidly to their country of nationality - the citizens of the Union. But there are many others, Lebanese nationals, third country national family members who may well be blocked in Cyprus or elsewhere. Even third country national family members of EU nationals cannot expect that they will be able to travel immediately on to the country of nationality of their EU national spouse without having to obtain a visa in Cyprus before moving on. The EU directive on movement of citizens of the Union, 2004/38, permits Member States to require such visas. There has been no decision by the Member States collectively to waive the visa requirement. Indeed, some Member States are even now arguing before the European Court of Justice in the case of Jia for an even more restrictive interpretation of the right of family reunification for the third country national family members of citizens of the Union.

For third country nationals with residence rights in Member States of the Union, they will have to provide documents proving their residence right in order to move on from Cyprus. Their third country national family members will not be able to accompany them to their country of residence unless they meet the strict maintenance and accommodation requirements of directive 2003/86 on third country national family reunification. These family members also have to obtain visas before being able to move to another Member State to enjoy family reunification with the sponsor and Member States may delay up to nine months in issuing a visa. For third country nationals resident in a Member State family reunification is limited to spouses and children under the age of majority. The elderly parents can be excluded as can the older children and any wider relatives.

Assuming that families have managed to get to Cyprus together, it is by no means clear that they will be able to move on. Member States may be highly suspicious of their documents or they may have lost their documents and evidence of their family relationships on route. While the initial flow is likely to be dealt with quickly, it is sadly likely that quite quickly the EU consulates in Cyprus will start to resound with rumours about fraudulent documents and ‘abuse’. What then happens to these people?

Among those who have arrived in Cyprus and Syria there are undoubtedly many persons who are refugees within the meaning of the 1951 UN Convention on the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol - those with a well found fear of persecution on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion. But there will also be others who either do not fulfil the requirements of the convention or do not want to apply for asylum as they want to return as quickly as possible to their home land. How should the EU deal with these issues? I have recommended that the EU open a temporary protection scheme to give an immediate status to all the people who are arriving from Lebanon whether evacuated or spontaneous arrivals. The advantage of this would be not least that such a scheme can be opened on the basis of qualified majority voting in the Council thus no one Member State is in a position to block the measure.

But what about the refugees? While the directive on temporary protection protects the right of an individual to submit an application for asylum at any time, it allows Member States to delay consideration of the application until the end of the temporary protection period (article 17). This possibility of delay must not be used if a temporary protection scheme is opened. Member States must not abuse the weak position of these refugees to delay their recognition in the hope that they will disappear with time and in any event by the end of the crisis. This requires no more than the Member States to undertake not to delay the consideration of asylum applications.

Will more displaced persons arrive in Europe from Lebanon? This will depend on whether they can get out or whether states take measures to prevent their departure thus placing them at even more risk. We must ensure that EU states do not take measures which block people in a country where they are at risk of death on a daily basis. For this reason the EU should lift immediately the visa requirement on Lebanese nationals so that they can get out without visas if they wish to. Further these displaced persons should not be diverted to Turkey outside the EU where they will have even more trouble obtaining visas to arrive in their countries of residence or those of their family members.

The key, though to whether more people flee Lebanon depends on whether the bombardment continues. Every day that it continues the more frantic people become to escape.