Does the increase in asylum seekers pose a threat to visa-free travel?

When the European Union granted the visa-free travel to the Georgian citizens it was largely regarded as a positive development. Throughout the following months, some troublesome tendencies became more difficult to ignore.

While the visa-free travel has generally been beneficial for Georgian and EU citizens and contributed to the increased cooperation between the two, there are quite a few challenges that could potentially damage this dynamic.

The comment made recently by the French Ambassador to Georgia sums up the general attitudes that can be observed throughout the European Union. According to Pascal Meunier, The political situation in Georgia does not demand people to seek political asylum and France's priority is to maintain Georgia's visa liberalization.

"France has supported visa liberalization and our goal was to allow Georgians to move around the EU with as little complications as possible.

Our priority is to keep that. The number of Georgian citizens demanding political asylum in France is growing. And It's a bit confusing, it does not comply with the current situation in Georgia. There is no war in Georgia, there is no situation where its citizens should be demanding political asylum. Political refugees are generally demanded by IDPs or people who are suffering from some type of persecution. Consequently, we have the impression that the citizens of Georgia become victims of manipulation from people who may or may not have been misinformed or are giving out false promises of employment in France.

Citizens of Georgia take the first place in the number of political asylum seekers in France," said Pascal Meunier.

According to the ambassador, this is not acceptable and appropriate measures will be taken against this trend.

"These people will probably get deported from the country. Our aim is to regulate the situation and, in this regard, the French government is consistently working with the Georgian government. We are also looking forward to the visit of the Minister of Interior Affairs of France to Georgia.

By the way, the Parliament of Georgia has recently adopted a law that makes the promotion of such procedures punishable.

To summarize, the citizens of Georgia who come to Schengen countries, especially in France to visit their relatives or the businessmen that have all the documents, return tickets, all the necessary papers proving that their stay in France and in the EU countries is legal are not only permitted, but welcome. But the people who come in for political asylum and are not facing the threat of persecution in their home country have to face the appropriate consequences, both from France and Georgia," said Pascal Meunier.

France is not the only European Country where the Georgians are seeking asylum at a high rate. In the year 2018, the German also published a report bringing to the attention the increasing rate of asylum seekers in the article published by Germany's Public International broadcaster, “Deutsche Welle”.

“Germany has noted a rise in asylum applications from Georgia now that its citizens can enter the EU visa-free. Authorities have warned the Georgian government it must fix the problem or risk losing its travel privileges.”

According to the same article, from the very start, France and Germany feared that the visa-free rule could lead to unwanted immigration and insisted upon including an "emergency brake" when Brussels negotiated travel liberalization with partner countries: In the event that visa-free travel should lead to an increase in asylum applications in EU countries, the privilege could be revoked.

EU member states have repeatedly threatened to invoke the mechanism, most recently after an increase in asylum applications filed by Georgians and Armenians in Germany.

So far there is no indication that the EU wants to revoke the visa-free travel, but it is clear that the necessary precautions must be taken immediately to prevent further growth of these trends.

Another country increasingly receiving a request for asylum is Sweden. This is an exceptionally interesting case because of the sheer distance between the two countries. Sweden has also experienced an increased number of Georgian criminals who commit small scale crimes that Sweden isn’t used to dealing with considering the country general low crime rates in the country. The instances of stolen packages sent to the nonexistent addresses in Georgia is a common practice.

While the European Union and the separate member states are always hesitant to point fingers at certain ethnicities or to generalize, it’s evident that the changes need to be made in a way that doesn’t compromise the visa-free travel.

When talking about the possibility of revoking the visa-free travel based on these instances the general attitude is that EU does not want to take away the privilege or damage the interests of regular citizen that just want to enjoy visa-free travel and have their documents in check.

Visa liberalization for Georgian citizens entered into force on the same day as the revised visa suspension mechanism, allowing the EU to react rapidly to increased irregular migration, including an increase in unfounded asylum requests, or security risk by suspending visa-free travel for any of the visa-free countries, if necessary.

Georgia has taken a number of actions to continue to address the challenge of unfounded asylum applications and to increase the operational cooperation with Member States most affected by irregular migration.

Recently a step in that direction was taken by the Austrian Officials. In Kutaisi International Airport Austrian Security Officers have appeared. They check the passengers’ documents extensively and have sent multiple people back and not allowed them to get on the flight. This caused quite a bit of discontent in the Georgian community society although, most of the people can’t help but see the necessity of these types of actions.