The European People’s party wants authorities to map Islamist organisations networks, cut funding to civil society, and trigger more intelligence-gathering on the religion.
Nikolaj Nielsen
Broad swipes against asylum and Islam were issued in separate resolutions by the EU’s largest political force, the European People’s Party (EPP) on Tuesday (30 June).
On Islam, the resolution claims the religion is being politically-exploited through entryism to undermine European democracy.
The EPP wants authorities to map Islamist organisations networks, cut funding to civil society, and trigger more intelligence gathering on the religion.
“We recognise the politico-religious interference in European democratic processes as an external and undue involvement in democratic processes,” it says, drawing an equivalent to Russian and Chinese meddling.
This comes despite a recent report by Germany’s federal intelligence agency that says rightwing extremists in that country remains the largest threat to democracy.
It also comes despite previous claims that the EU was indirectly funding the Muslim Brotherhood, which it has repeatedly debunked (here and here).
Racist innuendos
The European Network Against Racism, an NGO, says the resolution reproduces racist innuendos that portray Muslims as potential threats to European institutions and legitimises heightened scrutiny, exclusion, suspicion, racism, and violence against them.
“The resolution employs language of freedom and protection of communities to justify policies that do the complete opposite,” it said, in a statement.
“It is also equally important to note that the result of twisted narratives embedded in political tools such as the EPP resolution is the double bind in which Muslims in Europe are trapped: if they dare to engage with politics and practice active citizenship, they are labelled as ‘Islamists’ or as threats,” it added.
Migration
On migration, the EPP the resolution calls for the abolish of the status of subsidiary protection. The aim, it says, “to allow a faster return of refugees after the end of a civil war in their countries of origin.”
Over 155,000 received subsidiary protection in 2024, followed by 72,000 last year, according to the EU’s statistical office Eurostat.
In principle, subsidiary protection can be granted to people who do not qualify for refugee status under EU asylum rules but where, if returned, would face a risk of serious harm.
The EU’s Malta-based asylum agency (EUAA) such harm could include the death penalty or execution and torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
It also covers people who face serious and individual threat from indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict.
EPP in Vienna
Magnus Brunner, the EU commissioner for home affairs, delivered an opening speech at group’s political assembly in Vienna, which issued the resolutions.
He praised the EPP leadership on migration policy and credited the group of creating “a new mind shift” on migration, in reference to the recently passed deportation legislation.
But while the political assembly in Vienna held public discussions on enlargement, its forthcoming resolutions setting out its vision on various policies is likely to alarm rights defenders.
The migration resolution also proposes to ban asylum for any one that has been forced to cross an external border, in what the EU likes to describe as “instrumentalisation”, whereby a country like Belarus is using migration to destabilise Poland.
Brunner referenced the issue in his speech, telling the audience that he had personally seen Belarusian authorities pushing migrants across the border and thereby “using migrants using people as a weapon against the European Union.”
