The EU allocated about €700 million to support asylum procedures but almost €1,820 million for border controls between 2007 and 2013, according to a study by the Jesuit Refugee Service.
The report, launched in Brussels yesterday, calls for more intra-European solidarity to fund basic reception services and asylum procedures as well as search and rescue operations.
It highlights how the much-heralded Common European Asylum System, with guaranteed minimum asylum and reception standards, is far from being achieved.
A year after nearly 400 migrants drowned within sight of the Lampedusa coastline, the Italian search and rescue operation Mare Nostrum has saved more than 140,000 lives.
However, not enough had been done to meet the basic needs of asylum seekers in Europe, JRS said.
MEP Roberta Metsola, speaking at a related policy briefing in Brussels yesterday, said that what was happening in the Mediterranean was a consequence of what was occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and Libya.
Fortress Europe, she said, was not the solution. The question should be what future Europe could offer and she appealed again for a fair distribution mechanism where responsibility was shared among all member states.
“We need to look at EU legislation, like the Dublin Regulation, that imposes an unfair and disproportionate share of the responsibility on states like Malta, Italy, Spain, Greece and others on the periphery of the Mediterranean and prevents beneficiaries of international protection there from seeking a future elsewhere,” Dr Metsola said.
After the Lampedusa tragedy, the European Parliament had passed a cross party resolution that mapped the way forward on such issues. But European governments had simply not done enough, she said.
“Indifference is not an option for us,” Dr Metsola added.
The JRS report exposes the consequences of that indifference. Interviews conducted with migrants stranded in southern Italy demonstrate the failure of European reception systems to uphold principles of human dignity, hospitality and fairness.
The voices of people who have fled conflict and persecution from countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria ring loud and clear in the report.
“My bones hurt. I still have back pains from sleeping on the street. I slept on cardboard with no blanket or sheets,” relates Kofi, whose wife and two children drowned as they attempted to join him in Europe.
His experience of the reception centre was so bad he chose to go to Switzerland without documents. He was soon detained and sent back to Italy.
JRS Europe director Michael Schöpf said: “Simply listening to the migrants, people who have sacrificed everything to reach safety, reveals how national and European policies have failed to respect their dignity, create employment opportunities or help their integration into local communities”.
He said the report should serve as a wake-up call to anybody who reads it. “We cannot just focus on border security. We have an international obligation to develop fair and effective asylum systems in Europe that actually protect people and help them rebuild their lives,” he added.