Has Europe learned anything from Moria? New migration pact begins in the ashes of a child

As the EU prepares to fully implement its Pact on Migration and Asylum on June 12, the memory of Moria remains a point of reference in debates over migration policy. The new framework aims to make asylum procedures more efficient, but it also raises questions about what Europe has learned from its most notorious refugee camp.

The first image that returns to me from Davide Marchesi and Majid Bakhshi’s The Ashes of Moria is a child.

Mo Zaman, a former resident of Moria Reception and Identification Centre on Lesvos, recalls a fire breaking out inside the camp. As residents rushed to extinguish the flames, he discovered the burned body of a twelve-year-old girl beneath a blanket. He remembers watching her dad carry her body through the camp wrapped in a white sheet while people cried and shouted around them. Years later, he says, the memory remained so vivid that simply walking through that part of the site could trigger panic attacks, as a reminder of what happens when policy choices create conditions where humanity collapses. This is where any discussion of Europe’s migration policy should begin. In September 2020, a series of fires destroyed the RIC, leaving thousands of asylum seekers without shelter and bringing international attention to degrading conditions. Nonetheless, have the ashes ever truly disappeared?

The camp on Lesvos, designed for fewer than 3,000 people, eventually hosted more than 18,000. Families lived in overcrowded tents and makeshift shelters. Access to sanitation was severely inadequate while humanitarian organizations repeatedly documented overflowing sewage, insufficient access to clean water, long queues for food and healthcare, and growing concerns about sexual violence and crime. Women and children were frequently identified by aid organizations as particularly vulnerable while, before the fire, public authorities had warned that conditions had become incompatible with human dignity, because of deliberate policy design.

Zahra, another former resident, remembers arriving in Europe only to find fences, walls, police officers and guards. Looking around the facility, she recalls asking herself, “Am I coming to Europe or I’m entering a prison?”.

Another one brings to mind arriving with ambitions and plans for the future, but those disappeared when survival became the only objective. 

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There is a particular cruelty in such limbo. People existed in a space between worlds, unable to return, unable to move forward, unable to know what tomorrow would bring, not fully accepted, nevertheless not entirely rejected. Not safe enough to begin again. 

Today, we can certainly condemn the overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, insecurity and prolonged uncertainty that came to define the center. If Moria was a failure not only from a humanitarian perspective but also in terms of the deterrence-based migration governance model, we should reconsider.  

In a matter of days, the European Union will enter a new chapter in its approach to migration and asylum. On 12 June 2026, after a two-year transition period, the Pact on Migration and Asylum will begin to fully be applied across the European Union, described as “the most significant overhaul of the bloc’s asylum system in decades, a framework intended to create faster procedures and a more predictable distribution of responsibilities among Member States”.

The Pact emerged from a shared recognition that the previous asylum framework was ineffective. Its central components include mandatory screening procedures for individuals arriving at the EU’s external borders, expanded border asylum procedures, a revised “solidarity” mechanism between Member States, and a returns scheme.

For those seeking protection, time is experienced differently. An asylum procedure is rarely a straightforward administrative process, as it often unfolds after persecution, grief, loss and dangerous journeys. It requires people to recount traumatic experiences, experience unfamiliar legal pathways and make decisions that may determine the course of the rest of their lives.

Moria refugee camp, 2019 © Davide Marchesi

Moria refugee camp, 2019 © Davide Marchesi

Moria refugee camp, 2019 © Davide Marchesi

Moria refugee camp, 2019 © Davide Marchesi

Legally, the asylum process demands safeguards and meaningful access to rights, conditions that accelerated border procedures may undermine as under such circumstances, the question is whether individuals have a genuine opportunity to understand the process and effectively present their claims.

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The Pact emphasizes cooperation with third countries and mechanisms that allow responsibility for protection to be considered beyond the EU’s borders. Such arrangements may be a practical response to pressures on national asylum processes, but the issue of refugee protection and law is not just a practical one. Refugee law was built exactly on the recognition that people fleeing persecution should not be left in grey zones, nor should states be able to distance themselves from their protection obligations. This is why concerns about the new framework ultimately boil down to issues of accountability. The further protection responsibilities are displaced from the places where decisions are taken, the more difficult it becomes to ensure effective judicial examination, access to remedies and meaningful oversight of what happens to people once they leave Europe’s field of vision.

The principle of non-refoulement exists precisely because the consequences of an erroneous decision can be irreversible. When access to protection becomes increasingly conditioned, those seeking safety remain unable to access the rights that international refugee law was designed to guarantee.

Following the destruction of Europe’s antechamber, Greece invested heavily in a new reception model through the construction of Closed Controlled Access Centres on islands including Samos, Kos and Leros, equipped with extensive surveillance and access-control systems. Government officials describe them as proof that the failures associated with the previous reception crisis will not be repeated. But still, the country remains the subject of continuing scrutiny regarding pushbacks and compliance with fundamental-rights obligations. The Greek government rejects allegations of unlawful conduct and maintains that its authorities act within national and international law. Nevertheless, investigations and litigation continue. Frontex moreover, has confirmed that its Fundamental Rights Office is reviewing multiple reported incidents while judgments of the European Court of Human Rights have intensified examination of summary expulsions and access to protection.

Whether Europe has learned from Moria depends on whether the new Pact prevents, not reproduces, the conditions that once turned an island into a symbol of abandonment. It is easy to remove a borderland of suspension from a map. In retrospect, this reminds us that prolonged precarity affects relationships, aspirations, mental health, and self-perception. Borders have long been used as test beds for “exceptional” migration measures which gradually become normalized. The hotspot approach, the geographical restrictions imposed following the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement, the expansion of containment, and increasingly restrictive return mechanisms were all trialled in these same areas before becoming entrenched in the broader European migration governance and evolving into permanent structures.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.