EU Should Return Nobel Peace Prize: Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) Criticizes New Return Regulation and “Send Them Back” Chants in the European Parliament

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) sharply criticizes the European Parliament’s approval of the new EU Return Regulation. Particularly alarming, the organization says, were the “Send them back” chants heard from parts of the right-wing bloc in Parliament following the vote. Both developments highlight how far the EU has strayed from the values for which it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

“The European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 because it was supposed to stand for peace, reconciliation, democracy, and human rights. As long as it disregards this mandate, it should renounce the prize and symbolically return it,” demands Sarah Reinke, head of human rights work at the STP.

The “Send them back” chants, she says, amount to a declaration of moral bankruptcy. “These chants do not represent all members of parliament. Many parliamentarians continue to defend human rights, the rule of law, and the dignity of those seeking protection. But that is precisely why they must be rejected all the more clearly: such slogans have no place at the heart of European democracy,” Reinke emphasizes.

From the STP’s perspective, the new Return Regulation threatens a dangerous outsourcing of European responsibility. Those particularly affected are people who already have little protection: members of threatened minorities, refugees from war-torn and crisis-stricken regions, members of the opposition, women, children, and people persecuted because of their religion, ethnicity, or political views.

Through its foreign and foreign trade policies, the EU fuels conflicts and contributes to forcing people to flee. The EU must finally acknowledge its responsibility for the root causes of flight. Only a policy consistently guided by human and minority rights—and free of double standards—can effectively combat the root causes of flight.

“Human rights do not end at Europe’s external borders. The EU must not deport those seeking protection to third countries and then declare itself no longer responsible,” said Reinke. “Outsourcing responsibility also means outsourcing control, the rule of law, and humanity. This is precisely what contradicts the ideal for which the EU was once honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.”

The STP calls on the European Union to fundamentally revise the new Return Regulation, to abandon so-called “return hubs,” and to once again consistently align its asylum and migration policies with human dignity, the protection of minorities, the rule of law, and protection against refoulement. Procedures based on the rule of law, individual case reviews, access to legal counsel, and protection against deportation to countries where persecution or violence awaits are not bureaucratic obstacles, but core components of a democratic order.

“The Nobel Peace Prize was never merely a trinket for European institutions. It was both an acknowledgment and a mandate,” says Reinke. “As long as the EU pursues policies that disenfranchise, deter, and push those seeking protection out of the European legal sphere, it should forgo this prize and symbolically return the medal and certificate. Those who dehumanize, disenfranchise, and push those seeking protection out of sight cannot credibly call themselves Nobel Peace Prize laureates.”

The STP had already voiced criticism of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU back in 2012. Even then, it warned that the prize should not be seen as self-affirmation, but must instead be a commitment to concrete peace work—for example, with regard to the consequences of war, genocide, and displacement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the ongoing division of Cyprus. From the STP’s perspective, the current return regulation and the “Send them back” chants in the European Parliament demonstrate once again just how wide the gap has become between the EU’s claims to a peace policy and its political reality.

This press release was translated from German to English using AI. If you come across errors or ambiguities, please contact us at 65]G378o6DD6CA.