The European Commission says asylum seekers arriving at EU borders are now being screened, but it makes no mention of the independent rights monitors that EU law requires to oversee those procedures, even as spending on border surveillance surges.
“Screening of people arriving illegally and the border procedures are being carried out,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, in a letter addressed to the 27 heads of state and government meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday (15 October).
An annex to her letter, obtained by EUobserver, highlights broad outstanding issues when it comes to implementing new EU-wide asylum laws that kicked into force this past June.
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The EU is preparing to curb Chinese imports of chemicals and industrial machinery, following a successful deal with Beijing that capped hybrid car exports to the bloc.
The European Commission “showed openness” to proposing safeguards, referring to an emergency brake on imports that can cover entire sectors, an EU diplomat told EUobserver on Thursday (15 October).
And there was “broad support” for the idea among member states for the commission to proceed, the diplomat said.
Last week, trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič agreed with Beijing to cap imports of Chinese hybrid cars at 350,000 next year, which was less than half the amount expected this year.
He called the deal a “blueprint” for other sectors, a view which was publicly echoed by EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, also on Thursday.
Under World Trade Organization (WTO) and EU rules, anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases require Brussels to prove that Chinese firms sell at unfairly low prices or receive subsidies.
Safeguards do not need evidence under WTO rules, which allows them to be used as an emergency measure.
And the commission only has to show that a surge in imports is seriously harming European producers.
“We like the idea, chemicals, machinery where there’s still a lot of Chinese overproduction needs to be managed,” said another EU diplomat.
The instrument had its limits: Safeguards have to apply to all countries, not just China, and can last no more than eight years.
The EU rarely uses WTO safeguards, but did so on steel, also aimed at China, which expired in June, after reaching the eight-year limit, and which have since been replaced by a separate EU steel regime.
And the Centre for European Reform, a prominent think-tank in Brussels, previously suggested exempting the EU’s 76 free-trade partners from safeguards so that the measures fell mainly on China.
It was a legal moot point in the WTO if that was OK, but the EU has done something similar before.
Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and 10 other countries were left out of the steel safeguard, but using this tool to address Chinese imports was still seen as a temporary solution.
Before the end of the year, the EU commission aims to present diversification tools to reduce reliance on Chinese goods, as well as a mechanism to compensate companies hit by Chinese countermeasures.
And the package would include an instrument to shut Chinese companies out of the EU market if need be, in a measure first proposed in a Franco-German paper last week.
Slovak prime minister Robert Fico appears to have become Russia’s most prominent ally in the European Union, following the demise of Hungary’s pro-Kremlin leader.
Juraj Blanár, Slovakia’s foreign minister, announced controversial plans to revive a joint committee with Russia back in August – just a day before the anniversary of the Soviets occupying Czechoslovakia in 1968.
His announcement also came before Fico headed off to meet his counterparts at a summit in Brussels on Thursday (15 October).
And “so that there are no surprises, on the 25th [of October] there will … be a meeting of the joint economic commission with the Russian Federation,” Fico told the European affairs committee in Slovakia’s parliament on Wednesday.
The central European leader announced the closer ties with his aggressive neighbour immediately after planning a trip to Lviv in Ukraine early next month.
But if Fico does actually go to Lviv, just over the border from Poland, it would be the deepest he has travelled in the war-torn country so far.
And while he has not visited Kyiv in three years since returning to power, Fico has made plenty of time to go to Moscow during this time.
Many factors point to Slovakia now openly supporting the Kremlin, even as Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians intensify, killing dozens of people.
The Institute for European Security Studies (IESS), a Kyiv-based think tank, noted, in its analysis, that a recent statement by Slovak defence minister Robert Kaliňák did not consider Russia a threat, despite Russian intelligence services having been linked to attacks in Slovakia including, potentially, a drone attack on a manufacturer near Prešov.
The IESS also highlighted the renewed Slovak-Russian cooperation at the level of military attachés, with two Slovak military personnel sent to the Russian capital while a Russian officer went to Bratislava.
This swap of soldiers was promised by Fico to Putin when they met in the Kremlin on 9 May.
And to make matters worse, a Russian military attaché was captured on video handing cash to an associate of the Slovak fake news site Hlavné správy.
The Ukraine think-tank warned that Slovakia’s magnetism towards Russia should not be ignored.
“In the end, by lowering Nato’s guard and reopening the doors to Russian intelligence, Slovakia is doing exactly what Moscow needs: disabling the West’s defences from the inside out,” it said.
Pro-Kremlin all around
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Brussels with two main requests for his meeting with EU leaders on Friday (16 October): more funds for Kyiv for defence and more sanctions against Russia.
“All of us in Europe want this war to end. And for that to happen, strong signals are needed – more real pressure on Russia and more defence support for Ukraine,” he said on X.
“It is especially important now to act together to protect lives,” he added.
Zelensky’s plea comes days after US president Donald Trump announced a deal to bring Russian diesel to the US and global markets, raising questions about the consistency of Western efforts to restrict Russia’s energy revenues that are feeding the Kremlin war machine.
EU leaders are expected to “regret” the Trump-Putin deal in their summit conclusions, where they also mention more financial, humanitarian and diplomatic support to Kyiv ahead of what many predict to be one of the most difficult winters for Ukraine.
Dutch PM Rob Jetten said the diesel deal was “not a good step”, adding that “Europe has to show that we are not only dependent on the US”.
But he also appealed directly to the US, calling for more support: “Do what is necessary to support the Ukrainians. They need not only sufficient weapons to defend Ukraine, but also the information they need to repel Russian attacks.”
Despite the diesel deal, Estonian PM Kristen Michal, whose country hosts a US military base, also said the US is still a “partner” of Europe in the war in Ukraine.
“We will see what happens in the midterm elections. But I will never give up trying to talk to and convince … our transatlantic partners that we are better off united than divided on this issue,” European Parliament president Roberta Metsola said during a press conference on Thursday after meeting EU leaders.
And in a warning to Moscow about Nato’s unity, US top military commander Alexus Grynkewich also said earlier this week in Warsaw that any “foolish” attack on the Nato alliance would be “utterly futile”.
Funding gap
In December 2025, EU leaders failed to agree to use over €210bn in Russian frozen funds sitting in Europe and instead decided to go for a €90bn loan, aimed at covering about two-thirds of Ukraine’s external financing needs.
“The remaining third is the problem,” Tetiana Shevchuk, from the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center, told EUobserver, referring to commitments by other countries like Canada and Japan coming only for 2026. “2027 is the real gap”.
The €90bn loan is split into €45bn for 2026 and 2027, but recent reports point to about a €23bn financial gap amid an expected Russian escalation ahead of the winter.
Zelensky has asked Brussels to bring forward part of the loan to cover this gap in the defence ministry. But Brussels fears this advance “could unravel the compromise on gradual instalments and leave a hole later in 2027,” Shevchuk also said.
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The series continues as we report on developments following April’s historic election and on the steps taken since then by the Tisza government. This week, we cover the following topics:
Another blow for Hungary’s richest man;
New chief prosecutor nominee, plus a former chief prosecutor ready to testify on political pressure;
Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law;
A state secretary has unexpectedly left the government;
Orbán to keep quiet on one of Hungary’s most important national holidays;
Ukraine adopts the minority education law;
More EU funds and money from the Norway Grants have become available.
Another blow for Lőrinc Mészáros
Last Friday (9 October), prime minister Péter Magyar and Dávid Vitézy, minister for transport and investments, announced that the state was suspending implementation of one of Hungary’s largest rail projects – the Budapest southern circular railway, and will launch a new public procurement procedure.
The works had been carried out by V-Híd, the most profitable company of Lőrinc Mészáros, who became Hungary’s richest man during Viktor Orbán’s premiership.
However, the European Court of Auditors uncovered serious public-procurement irregularities: V-Híd may have colluded with the company that drafted the project plans and thus already possessed information at the time of the tender that its competitors did not have. Because of this, the European Court of Auditors would withdraw EU funding from the project.
The Hungarian government does not want to forfeit the EU money and make Hungarian taxpayers foot the bill for the costs of the project, which is why it is terminating the contract with Mészáros’s company and launching a new tender.
The Hungarian state had already taken away from Mészáros the right to operate a motorway section, and later also terminated the 35-year motorway concession.
Previously, one of his food-industry companies had EU funding already granted to it withdrawn, while his energy company was excluded from a call for proposals financed from the repatriated RRF funds.
New chief prosecutor nominee, plus former chief prosecutor ready to testify
On Monday (12 October), president András Baka nominated a former chief prosecutor, Péter Fejes, for the post of chief prosecutor. His first nominee, Zoltán Szathmáry, was not voted through by the Tisza group in parliament after it emerged that his brother was implicated in the so-called gold convoy case, in which a Ukrainian cash shipment was stopped and confiscated by the Hungarian authorities.
Fejes was dismissed in 2012 from his position as chief prosecutor of Vas county by Péter Polt, the chief prosecutor serving the Orbán system, citing loss of confidence. Since then he has continued to work within the prosecution service and as a university lecturer, and he has no party affiliation. For the time being neither prime minister Magyar nor the Tisza group has stated whether they support Fejes’s nomination.
Since the change of government, another former chief prosecutor, Pál Fürcht, has frequently spoken to the media. Among other things, he has claimed that the gold convoy case was created for political purposes, and that the authorities raided the Ukrainian cash couriers on Orbán’s orders.
On Sunday (11 October), Magyar sharply criticised Fürcht in a Facebook post, reproaching him for having been a servant of the system himself. According to Magyar, Fürcht constructed a criminal case, on political orders, out of the notorious nightclub altercation for which the prime minister is currently under investigation on charges of theft.
It was likewise Fürcht who left former propaganda minister Antal Rogán out of the corruption case known as the Völner–Schadl affair.
In response to Magyar’s criticism, Fürcht said he was ready to make an official statement before any authority. In parliament on Monday, the prime minister was already referring to the former chief prosecutor as a future witness.
Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law
Child protection was one of the most important topics of the campaign and played a major role in Orbán’s downfall. Magyar kept the issue on the agenda even after his government took office; most recently, last Thursday, the prime minister and the state secretary responsible for the field, Szilvia Gyurkó, presented the report on the children’s home in Bicske.
This home had been run by a director who was decorated by Orbán and later convicted of paedophile crimes, together with his deputy, who helped cover up the abuses. The presidential pardon granted to the deputy shook the Orbán government and helped lead to its collapse.
On Tuesday (13 October), parliament adopted an amendment to the child-protection law, which takes a tougher stance against media content accessible to minors that propagates sexual violence, manipulation and exploitation, and would speed up the placement of babies abandoned in hospital.
The amendment removed those homophobic passages that the Orbán government forced into law in 2021, and which the Court of Justice of the European Union also ruled to be contrary to EU law.
Fidesz, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) and the far-right Mi Hazánk did not vote for the amendment; Magyar called this a disgrace.
A state secretary unexpectedly leaves the government
On Tuesday, András Tótth, state secretary for energy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and minister István Kapitány’s most important aide, unexpectedly resigned.
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Zelensky has lost patience; the US is acting as Putin’s ally.
How Ukrainians attackedRussian targets without Starlink.
If Musk did not switch off Starlink, who did? The main suspects.
Ukrainian attacks on data centres hit Russia where it hurts.
Why this type of attack will continue to escalate and not only in this war.
Videos of the day: a hero robot returns without a wheel; attacks on ammunition depots.
Zelensky has lost patience; the US is Putin’s ally. Despite problems with Starlink, which Kyiv said cut connections with attack drones when they exceeded a certain speed, major Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory continued in recent hours. Long-range strikes over Russia are carried out by drones without Starlink.
These included an attack on the military airfield in Borisoglebsk, more than 300 km from the border, as well as on a refinery in Ryazan, which the local governor confirmed. The Ryazan refinery belongs to Rosneft and is one of the largest, with a capacity of around 17 million tonnes of oil a year.
This came after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told the Financial Times that he had had enough after Russian attacks during the so-called energy truce, and announced that refineries would once again become Ukrainian targets.
It was precisely a limitation of such Ukrainian strikes that US president Donald Trump had demanded, after last week concluding a controversial agreement with Moscow to buy Russian oil without asking for anything in return from the Russian side.
This was followed by steps that raised serious suspicions that Trump had begun acting in favour of Putin’s war against Ukraine.
The US threatened Ukraine with restricting supplies of weapons or critically important intelligence and, ultimately, as we examined on Wednesday in the Ukraine Battlefield update, Ukrainian soldiers began experiencing a serious problem with the full internet connection provided by the military version of Starlink, which Musk’s SpaceX developed for the Pentagon.
This is crucial to the Ukrainian army not only for attacks on Russian logistics at the front, but also in defending against more dangerous Russian jet-powered drones, which have terrorised Ukrainian cities in recent months.
Russia’s pro-Kremlin scene naturally noticed this as well. The Z-blogger Rybar called for the use of an “opportunity” in which Russian forces could inflict maximum damage on Ukrainian infrastructure.
“I think the crisis is entirely clear and understandable. The crisis lies in Trump’s position, which is trying to help Russia in every possible way,” expert Volodymyr Ohryzko commented on the situation.
We write below about what the company’s owner, Elon Musk, has said about these developments.
How Ukrainians attacked without Starlink. In the first of the Ukrainian attacks mentioned above, on the airfield in Borisoglebsk, Ukrainian Neptune missiles were used, according to the Ukrainian navy. Ukrainians said they destroyed as many as six Su-34M aircraft. They have their own navigation systems and do not need SpaceX services.
⚡️ BREAKING: Ukraine’s Navy claims to have struck SIX Russian Su-34M fighter-bombers in a Neptune missile attack on Borisoglebsk military airbase in Russia’s Voronezh region overnight. https://t.co/kMEuVbmrVXpic.twitter.com/fH8igvygd5
The attack on the refinery in Ryazan involved drones that are likewise not connected to Starlink, as SpaceX has geographically restricted Ukraine’s access to both Starlink and Starshield services.
“The Ukrainian armed forces therefore rely on alternative means of communication and point-to-point navigation to strike targets in Russia. The speed restrictions under the Starshield service are unrelated to this and will not prevent the Ukrainian armed forces from attacking Russian oil refineries, data centres and other stationary targets in Russia,” the Institute for the Study of War said.
However, Ukrainians felt the problems mainly at the home front.
An unnamed Ukrainian officer compared it to nuclear strikes in comments to Politico. “All operations have been suspended. It will cost many of us our lives,” an experienced soldier commanding a medium-range unmanned aircraft unit in south-eastern Ukraine told the Brussels-based website.
They use Hornet drones to attack targets at distances of up to 150 km.
Ukrainian soldiers contacted by Politico said the restrictions had halted some medium-range drone attacks over Ukraine, disrupting strikes on Russian logistics and reducing support for Ukrainian units at the front.
The scale of the disruption is unclear, however, and it is not known whether the restriction remains in place.
If Musk did not switch off Starlink, who did? The main suspects. Several Ukrainian soldiers reported on Wednesday that they had had to suspend their operations because of restrictions on satellite connections with drones that exceeded 160 km/h.
According to former minister Mykhailo Fedorov, this capability was later restored. NV sources, by contrast, said the speed limit remained in place on Wednesday evening. The following day, operation of the system was fully restored, according to Ukraine’s defence ministry, while the circumstances of the outage are being investigated.
Importantly, Zelensky said it was not a technical problem but an apparent deliberate act. It is not yet certain who was behind it, although the main suspect is clear.
Musk claims that, because the military version of the Starshield satellite internet connection is military in nature, it is controlled by the US government, which also owns it.
“Any decisions on speed or usage restrictions are made by the US military and, ultimately, the US president (POTUS),” the world’s richest man wrote on his social network X. However, the White House, according to Axios sources, claims it had nothing to do with the restriction and wants Musk’s company to investigate the circumstances.
Republican senator Tom Tillis is also calling for this in Congress. “I do not expect defence secretary Hegseth to ensure transparency, and therefore we will ask the defence department’s inspector general to launch an investigation and report to Congress and the American people,” he wrote on X.
Starshield differs from the regular network in its greater resistance to jamming and its specialisation for military use.
Oleksandr “Serg Marco” Karpiuk, a well-known Ukrainian specialist in military aerial reconnaissance, wrote on Facebook that standard Starlink terminals currently have a preset speed limit of 22 m/s.
“To be able to fly at speeds above 22 m/s, Ukraine signed contracts for the Starshield system, which is managed by the Pentagon. This is a military system using Starlink terminals that offer greater functionality, although these accounts are substantially more expensive,” he explained. According to him, the Pentagon did two things within a single day: it restricted intelligence-sharing and changed the parameters of Starshield accounts.
“It was a decision by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, evidently on Trump’s orders,” Karpiuk believes, as quoted by Illia Ponomarenko in a post.
Pro-Kremlin propaganda has welcomed the latest developments.
The Russian daily Kommersant quoted a Musk post in which he wrote that it was “time for Zelensky to leave”. His words followed Trump once again pushing Ukraine to hold elections in which it would choose a new president.
Zelensky responded that they would be happy to organise elections if Russia observed a 60-day ceasefire.
Experts agree that it is unrealistic to organise a proper vote under the wartime conditions Ukraine faces.
Ukrainian attacks on data centres hit Russia where it hurts. Although it has not yet been confirmed that pro-Kremlin bots became less active after Ukrainian drones struck Russian servers, ordinary Russians felt the impact. Russia started such attacks in September, amid escalating air raids on Kyiv.
As many as around 100,000 households lost internet access at the time. Now, this tactic has been turned against Moscow.
Researchers studying Russian trolling did not observe any real decline in the activity of pro-Putin bots either, according to a BBC analysis. Far more interesting, however, are the real-world consequences of Ukrainian attacks on the data centres of Yandex, Russia’s Google, which have manifested themselves in a range of ways.
According to Politico sources, Ukrainians wanted to show Russians that it takes two to play this game. According to the Financial Times, they have already managed to seriously damage three of Yandex’s six data centres: in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir.
The consequences of these attacks subsequently showed how vulnerable Russia’s centralised internet ecosystem is.
“Russia has become a victim of its own policies, which has led to the worst possible scenario,” Alena Epifanova, an expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told the FT.
The impact of the Ukrainian attack has affected the daily lives of Russians. Here overview of services that were affected to a greater or lesser extent, according to the British daily:
problems accessing Yandex email;
Yandex Taxi was taken offline;
several websites — including a dating app and the Russian equivalent of McDonald’s — were inaccessible;
saved files and documents could not be opened;
bus timetables disappeared in some cities;
residents of some Moscow apartment buildings could not get through electric gates;
banking services were not fully operational.
All the affected data centres also have supercomputers used to train AI, which is playing an increasingly important role on the battlefield.
For example, one of Yandex’s three supercomputers — Chervonenkis — in Sasovo had long ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful supercomputers, and only in 2026 fell to 101st place, according to the BBC.
However, it has not been confirmed that Ukrainian attacks damaged any of them. According to the Russians, an attack on a similar Sberbank facility did not cause significant damage.
“If the supercomputers are damaged, replacing the loss will be difficult — they were powered by chips from the US company Nvidia, which Yandex imported through ‘complex and complicated schemes’ because of sanctions,” a former company employee told the BBC.
Given the current shortage of Nvidia chips, Yandex’s data centres may not be restored until 2028, according to the website.
Why this could escalate. Attacks on buildings that provide computing capacity are comparable, according to Politico, to strikes on a power plant supplying electricity, heat and fuel, on which both military and civilian functions depend.
That is also why this type of attack sits on the edge of international law.
“It may weaken the enemy’s military effort, but it can also completely paralyse ordinary life,” the Brussels-based website wrote. According to Politico, the cost of restoring data centres in Russia is particularly high because the necessary materials are scarce and their import is restricted by Western sanctions.
“Obtaining a large quantity of equipment to replace what has been destroyed will not be easy,” cyber specialist Oleg Shakirov told Politico.
For now, Ukrainian expert Yevhen Pronin is cautious in assessing the effectiveness of attacks on data centres. “For example, after the attack on Sberbank’s data centre — Russia’s largest bank and one of its key technology companies — its representatives said its systems were operating without disruption, and reports indicated that the centre itself was still under construction,” Pronin told Denník N.
However, a series of such strikes fundamentally changes the scale of the risk, he said. If attacks continue to hit large operational centres on which banks, state services and corporate services depend, the consequences could be far more serious.
“They range from widespread outages to data loss and disruption to critical digital infrastructure. We do not yet see a catastrophe for all of Russia, but rather the vulnerability of a system that is increasingly dependent on a few major technological hubs,” he added.
Attacks on data centres themselves are not a new feature of the Russia-Ukraine war.
At the start of Trump’s war against Iran, Amazon data centres in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were hit. This was followed by an attack on a data centre in Tehran, after which soldiers’ salary payments were interrupted and banks’ online services stopped working.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies examined at the time how data had become a new front line of warfare. Following a trip to Kyiv, its researcher Emily Harding concluded that “state-of-the-art software, flexible operational procedures, and the strategic migration of data to cloud storage both inside and outside the country have given Ukraine the advantage it needs to fight”.
The problems linked to Starlink only confirm this digital vulnerability of modern warfare.
Videos of the day
It returned even in critical condition. Ground robots are being deployed increasingly often at the Ukrainian front, saving more and more lives in the deadly zone where drones hunt people. In this case, one such robot returned from a demanding mission even without one wheel.
A Ukrainian logistics UGV returns from a combat mission despite sustaining critical damage pic.twitter.com/d8fT8sh21T
Attacks on ammunition depots. FPV drone operators from Artan, a special unit of Ukrainian military intelligence — apparently also thanks to Starlink — launched a series of attacks on field ammunition depots. Over several months, they reportedly struck 2,308 enemy targets.
Enemy tanks and self-propelled artillery systems probably accounted for a significant proportion of them.
By Tuesday (13 October), Russia had demonstrably lost 24,192 pieces of heavy equipment (24,170 on Monday, 5 October). Of these, 19,155 (19,133) were destroyed by Ukrainians, 1,002 (1,003) were damaged, 1,194 (1,194) were abandoned by their crews, and 2,841 (2,840) were captured by the Ukrainian army. This includes 4,453 (4,452) tanks, of which 3,358 (3,357) were destroyed in combat.
Ukraine lost 12,259 (12,238) pieces of equipment, of which 9,652 (9,633) were destroyed, 713 (711) damaged, 695 (695) abandoned and 1,199 (1,199) captured. This includes 1,471 (1,466) tanks, of which 1,131 (1,126) were destroyed in combat.
Note: Neither side regularly reports its dead or destroyed equipment. Ukraine publishes daily figures for Russian casualties and destroyed equipment, which cannot be independently verified. In this overview, we use data from the Oryx project, which has compiled a list of equipment losses documented exclusively by photographs since the beginning of the war.
Europe’s trade deficit with China reached a record $34.8bn [€31bn] in September, as EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday (15 October) to discuss Europe’s competitiveness agenda and what they call “macroeconomic imbalances” — a euphemism to avoid mentioning China by name.
EU heads of state and government are expected to give a mandate to the EU Commission to propose a set of trade defence measures and tools to reduce the EU’s reliance on Chinese industry, based on a new Franco-German blueprint, as a united front spreads across the bloc.
There was a move towards a “surprising unitary position” on Beijing among member states, said an EU diplomat, ahead of a two-day summit in Brussels which began on Thursday (15 October).
A joint letter and policy paper submitted by French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz to commission president Ursula von der Leyen last week was viewed by many EU diplomats as marking a decisive shift towards a more consolidated EU stance on trade relations with China.
“For a long time, there were significant differences between these two countries on how to deal with China, how to address the economic situation,” parliament president Roberta Metsola told reporters on Thursday.
The diplomat added that the commission’s trade diversification package, designed to reduce the bloc’s reliance on Chinese industrial inputs and curb Chinese exports, will be presented by the end of the year and will be based on the Franco-German paper.
But the commission, for its part, has downplayed the prospect of rapid progress to EU-Chinese trade statistics. “It’s an issue which is not going to be solved in a couple of months,” said one official.
‘Be ready for escalation’ but do nothing
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When European Union leaders meet in Brussels later on Thursday (15 October), migration will be high on the agenda. Amid political panic — real and manufactured — over the events in Ceuta this summer, the European Commission has come out with a five-point plan promising more border surveillance and policing, more dodgy deals with countries outside the EU, and more deportations.
It also includes an ominous plan to devise a new “emergency response instrument” that could allow for the total suspension of access to asylum, which is likely to result in summary mass deportations, in situations when third countries are blamed for ‘instrumentalising’ migration movements.
That the idea is even on the table is a measure of how far the EU’s approach to migration has degenerated.
There is a jarring disconnect between commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s insistence on European values and the rules-based order and the willingness to throw the right to asylum out the window.
It is a short-sighted and dangerous hypocrisy that will harm women, men, and children at EU borders and potentially beyond if it encourages other states to adopt a similar approach.
If a 20-year-old man I interviewed in Ceuta in August were at the summit in Brussels, he might help guide the debate back to the realities of why people flee and seek safety, their needs and aspirations and hopefully toward a policy informed by shared humanity.
A Ceuta story
He told me he escaped from his village in Somalia in November 2024 when the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab attacked it. He went to Libya and spent six months detained in a smuggler’s warehouse in Kufra, where he said he witnessed many deaths from nightly beatings. He escaped, reached Morocco, and after months of hardship there saw his chance to seek safety on 31 July, when he swam to Ceuta.
It may well be that instrumentalisation played a role, among many other factors, in the arrival of more than 72,000 people there during two days at the end of July.
For many, the decision to cross may have been opportunistic and fuelled by disinformation on social media. Yet that cannot justify violence, summary returns, degrading treatment, or denying access to asylum procedures, in Ceuta or elsewhere.
Among the thousands who have remained in Ceuta are asylum seekers from strife-torn Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Chad, and elsewhere.
Suspending asylum completely would not only thwart their chances to find protection. It would rupture the EU’s commitment to the rules-based international order in a profound way.
Rupture of rights
The right to seek asylum is embedded in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the related prohibition of refoulement — sending someone to a place where they face serious harm — is a red line through international human rights and refugee law.
The focus on deterrence and externalisation over the past decade – coinciding with the growing influence of the far-right in European politics – has arguably made this previously unthinkable option part of the conversation.
Both Greece (temporarily in 2020 and 2025) and Poland (continuously at its border with Belarus since March 2025) have suspended asylum without significant reaction from the commission or other member states.
The Crisis Regulation, part of the pact, already allows a member state to depart from normal border procedures and curtail important safeguards in a situation of mass arrivals and/or when a third country or hostile non-state actor instrumentalises migration. While the regulation causes concern about potential misuse and unjustified restrictions on access to asylum, it does not allow for wholesale suspension of the right.
A difficult situation was compounded by recriminations against Spain from other EU countries, exploitation by far-right groups, and neglect and hostility that led to people living on the streets, in the forests, and in makeshift huts on the beach in an apparent effort to compel them to go back to Morocco. It took Spain weeks to begin housing and registering people.
Spain did not invoke the Crisis regulation. Rather than adding new measures, policymakers should be wrestling with why it didn’t use supposedly tailor-made EU legislation and addressing how mismanagement and a finger-pointing lack of cooperation among EU states create an endless loop of crises that feed xenophobia.
EU leaders should keep sight of the people affected and basic principles at stake. They should reject approaches to migration that so clearly violate fundamental rights and normalise cruelty.
EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
Ten years after the Brexit vote, more and more Britons are asking whether they should go back. According to a YouGov poll conducted earlier this month, 52% would vote to rejoin the EU in a referendum.
And the UK’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, seems to be keeping that door open.
But how realistic is that? Andy Burnham became Prime Minister this summer. And since then, he has been dropping hints here and there about a possible return to the EU. A few months ago, he was saying it was too early to even discuss it.
So what changed? Perhaps the international context, but also the realisation that the UK cannot get everything it wants while staying outside the Union.
On 20 November, EU leaders will have the opportunity to discuss the relationship with the UK during a bilateral summit. They will try to reach agreements on a number of issues that have stalled.
What are those topics? First, food. Today, agri-food products face checks and certification when they enter the EU, and that slows trade down. The solution on the table is for the UK to align its sanitary and phytosanitary standards with the EU’s. But the details still need to be agreed.
Second, people. Right now, a European who wants to work in the UK needs a visa. The two sides could agree on a scheme to make mobility easier, especially for young people.
Third, carbon. The British would like to link their carbon market to the EU’s, so that their exporters don’t have to pay extra for their emissions when they sell to Europe. In practice, that means avoiding the EU’s carbon border tax.
Last but not least, industry. And this is a big part of the discussion. As the EU moves towards giving priority to European products, the British fear being left out of this “European preference”.
Now, you might say: in all these cases, isn’t this a bit like being in the EU, without the drawbacks? That’s exactly what critics call cherry-picking.
At the heart of the problem is a simple question: where do you draw the line between being a member and being a partner? It’s the same debate the EU has with Switzerland, which wants to stay very close but not be part of the bloc.
Now, is a return to the EU a realistic scenario? The door is open, as Emmanuel Macron and others have put it.
The UK could apply, and it’s unlikely that any member state would block the process. But the European Commission has already warned: there would be no special treatment for the British.
On the positive side, the UK would start from a good position. It already applies a good part of EU legislation, and it meets the rule-of-law criteria.
But all these years after leaving the EU, the two sides are still negotiating. There are sticking points on free movement and on standards. And those disagreements would make any accession talks that much harder.
Let’s see what comes out of the summit on 20 November.
As EU leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (15-16 October) to discuss, among other things, the issue of Europe’s southern border, countless Moroccan families cling to the hope they may see their children again after they entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa in July.
“Ayoub left on 30 July at 2PM. Since that day, I haven’t heard anything from him, apart from the fact that he went to Ceuta,” his brother said.
Ayoub Elkhamlichi was 27 when he left the north of Morocco for the nearby border with Ceuta, a half-hour drive from his home.
In the commotion that accompanied the rush of an estimated 72,000 mostly Moroccans into the enclave over 30 and 31 July 2026, 141 people were reported to have lost their lives while attempting the crossing.
Those that have not been heard of since that deadly July remain innumerable.
Among them is Ayoub, who had been working in a local konafa shop before leaving.
His brother Mohamed Ali laments that he’d forgotten his ID card, which will reduce the chances he’ll be identified if he’s ever found.
“The border with Ceuta was opened, so everyone left Morocco, because the city of Tetouan offers few job opportunities,” Mohamed Ali told EUobserver, from his home in one of Morocco’s closest cities to the Spanish border.
“Ayoub managed to find a job, but the pay was low. So he went to Ceuta,” he said. His family, meanwhile, “are in a state of anxiety and fear.”
It has been 11 weeks since Khaled’s dad Said has also seen his son, 26, who left for Ceuta from Tidass, a small Moroccan town, which Said said “has its problems.”
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