Germany remains critical of further EU-level measures to steer irregular migration amid a unilateral crackdown at its borders but may be open to a European initiative to conduct asylum procedures outside the EU, insiders told Euractiv.
Last week marked a paradigm shift for Germany, a long-time proponent of coordinated European action on irregular migration when it announced that it would restart controls at all borders and consider turning away migrants unilaterally.
While branded as an effort to enforce European regulations, some EU countries have flagged their “concerns” that Germany’s unilateral approach could undermine the EU’s cohesiveness.
Their fears about Germany’s European backsliding are justified insofar as there is little appetite in Berlin for taking new EU-level measures to tackle stubbornly persistent irregular migration.
Germany’s government considers the European part of its mission done after member states completed the mammoth task of reforming the Union’s migration policy earlier this year.
“The government is focusing on implementing what has been achieved in 10 years of negotiations at the European level and not on untying it now,” Maximilian Kall, spokesman of Germany’s interior ministry, told journalists on Wednesday (4 September) before the border control announcement.
According to the ministry, the national measures are supposed to bridge the two-year “gap” before the EU reform enters into force.
Thus, EU-level migration measures that the Commission has put on the table in recent months are unlikely to dissuade Berlin from taking matters into its own hands, let alone receiving its backing.
Von der Leyen’s ‘chequebook diplomacy’
Germany has most notably remained detached from President Ursula von der Leyen’s migration diplomacy, which received a nod in the mission letter to the designated new Migration Commissioner, Magnus Brunner.
The strategy amounts to the Commission signing deals with third countries, such as Tunisia, which receive EU funds in hopes that they will help prevent migrants from reaching European shores.
While most leaders of EU countries affected by rising migration, such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy, have accompanied von der Leyen on trips to transit countries to sign such deals, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD/S&D) has not.
Given that the public spotlight on migration has mainly boosted the far-right AfD party in the polls, the government “has preferred to do effective work in the background rather than appear in front of the cameras with the president,” Helge Lindh, an SPD lawmaker who has worked with the chancellery on migration, told Euractiv.
He added that the Commission’s deals were mostly “chequebook diplomacy with a focus on money transfers to authoritarian governments”, in contrast to Germany’s own “comprehensive” bilateral agreements.
Notably, the latter features third-country reassurances to take migrants back. Moreover, von der Leyen’s deals do not cover the Middle Eastern migration routes that are important for Germany, Lindh said.
On the EU level, Scholz is primarily interested in reviving the 2016 EU-Turkey deal, requiring Turkey to take back migrants who entered Europe via its territory, which faltered in 2020.
Germany would like to save this deal from its dysfunctional state, but the government told Euractiv that “the point of contact in this matter is the European Commission. ”
“International talks” on Albania model
A more controversial measure that Brussels – and several member states – want to take to the EU level is Italy’s ‘Albania model’. Rome has been planning to take irregular migrants to Albania to process their asylum claims there, mostly for deterrence reasons.
Von der Leyen has previously shown openness to an EU-wide version of this, notably tasking Brunner with “reflections on innovative operational solutions to counter irregular migration.”
Surprisingly, Germany appears to come around to this idea: “The so-called ‘Albania model’ […] is a topic that will continue to play a role in further discussions both within Germany […] and at the European level,” Germany’s Kall said.
Following pressure from the opposition, the government is currently reviewing options for how Germany could practically implement such externalised asylum procedures.
Another interior ministry spokesperson hinted that this could very well include a joint-European solution: “The federal government is also supposed to hold talks at the international level in this context,” he told Euractiv.
How seriously this will be pursued remains uncertain, but it marks a stark contrast to the interior ministry’s understated reaction to a push from 19 member states for an EU-wide Albania-style deal earlier this year.
Some claim that there has long been sympathy for the Albania model within the SPD-led interior ministry, with migration expert and proponent of Albania-style deals Gerald Knaus presenting such models to their coalition negotiations in 2021, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter told Euractiv.
“Nancy Faeser [later interior minister] was also there and seemed she didn’t find the model too bad. She probably still doesn’t today,” one source said.
But the party’s powerful home affairs specialists, such as Deputy Parliamentary Leader Dirk Wiese, are unconvinced of the cost-benefit calculation. “The whole thing would be very expensive and very complicated, similar to [the UK’s Rwanda model],” Wiese told Euractiv.
The SPD’s junior coalition partners, the Greens, are also strictly opposed. Their lead MP on migration, Julian Pahlke, told Euractiv that the Albania model amounted to a “populist fake solution” that is “incompatible with European and international law.”
What next?
More clarity is expected in December when the German government is due to present its own model. Influential German experts question, in any case, whether either of the European initiatives mulled over by the Commission will have the desired effect.
The Commission’s Tunisia deals received some praise for contributing to a recent drop in arrivals in Italy. But “there are still no studies or reliable scientific findings on this,” Hans Vorländer, chair of the government’s main advisory board on immigration, SVR Integration and Migration, told Euractiv.
Nor do these studies exist for the Albania model, he said, adding that only the EU-Turkey deal “has de facto worked, at least regarding its steering effect.”
Either way, Germany’s neighbours have seen enough of its approach for now. They will likely put a discussion of Germany’s migration policy on the agenda for the next Justice and Home Affairs Council in October.
[Edited by Martina Monti]
Source: euractiv.com
