EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday (17 October) for tense and difficult talks on the bloc’s management of migration.
Two of the trickiest issues to be discussed will be how to increase the deportations of irregular migrants, and whether to apply an already agreed overhaul of EU asylum and migration laws earlier than planned.
National governments across the EU are under increasing pressure from voters to get a firm grip on immigration. However, disagreements between countries – particularly over sharing responsibility for asylum requests – make it difficult for the EU to maintain a common approach to the problem.
EU diplomats have doubts that Thursday’s European Council summit – which is likely to run late into the evening – will be able to agree anything substantial on migration. But EU summits can be unpredictable, and there is hope among diplomats that the talks will help lay the groundwork for some kind of agreement at the next summit in December.
The leaders’ closed-door debate on migration will be held between talks on Ukraine and the Middle East. It will be the last EU summit to be chaired by outgoing European Council President Charles Michel, who will leave office at the end of November to make way for Portugal’s former prime minister António Costa, who takes over on 1 December.
European Council summit agreements – formally known as conclusions – are essentially political guidelines for the EU’s legislative work. But they require the support of all 27 EU leaders to be adopted.
One optimistic EU diplomat put the odds in favour of substantive conclusions on migration at 60/40, saying it would be “nice to have” written agreements at the summit, but “not a must”.
But most diplomats Euractiv spoke to say an agreement on migration at this summit is unlikely, and that the most probable outcome is a basic statement that leaders discussed the issue and will return to it later.
Applying new migration laws early
Member states including Germany, France and Spain want to speed up the implementation of at least some parts of the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact, a major legal overhaul that was agreed in May. The pact amends laws governing matters such as the processing of arrivals at the EU’s external borders, the handling of asylum requests, and burden-sharing between member states.
In a lengthy letter to EU leaders on Monday (14 October), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her enthusiasm for “moving swiftly on the implementation of the Pact.”
Poland, however, is likely to oppose any conclusion to bring the pact’s implementation forward.
The country has taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees, while Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus is sending migrants across the Polish border to put pressure on the EU. For Warsaw, taking in more migrants from elsewhere is out of the question.
The latest compromise draft of the Council conclusions, dated Wednesday (16 October) – drafted by Michel and seen by Euractiv – does not explicitly mention the pact at all. However, the document does stress “the importance of implementing adopted EU legislation,” an oblique reference to the pact.
One diplomat argued that Thursday’s talks on migration will be more productive in the long run if leaders avoid getting bogged down over whether or not to agree on early implementation there and then.
But another said leaders would debate the matter irrespective of whether or not it is spelled out in Michel’s latest draft conclusions.
Deportations and returns
Leaders will also discuss the often complicated challenge of deportations, as well as the controversial idea of processing asylum requests and repatriations in centres or “return hubs” outside the EU.
Von der Leyen’s extensive letter – described by one EU diplomat as “biblical” – calls for agreements with countries in North Africa, the Western Balkans and elsewhere to find ways of reducing arrivals and increasing the return of irregular migrants to their country of origin.
She also asked EU leaders to “explore possible ways forward as regards the idea of developing return hubs outside the EU, especially in view of a new legislative proposal on return.”
The return of irregular migrants is not addressed in the new pact. The last attempt to revise EU rules on the matter in 2018 stalled in the European Parliament, where legislators were unable to agree.
EU diplomats are cagey about how return hubs would work, or even where they could be located.
In her letter, von der Leyen also said the EU could “draw lessons” form a recent agreement between Italy and Albania. However, the deal only covers people who are rescued at sea and then taken to Albanian territory, where their asylum requests are processed under Italian jurisdiction. It does not currently allow anyone to be deported from Italian soil to Albania.
The lack of detail means leaders are unlikely to reach an agreement on return hubs at Thursday’s summit. Moreover, while diplomats from many member states are enthusiastic about the idea in principle, all need to be on more-or-less the same page for there to be a summit agreement. The Spanish government, for example, is deeply sceptical about the idea.
North-south divide
Germany and the Netherlands are also pushing for conclusions on the implementation of existing rules: in particular, the Dublin III Regulation, which requires asylum requests from irregular migrants to be handled by the first EU country they arrive in.
This places much of the burden on Mediterranean countries, particularly Greece and Italy. But there are concerns that too many people arriving in these countries end up seeking asylum elsewhere, a phenomenon known as secondary migration.
The issue puts Europe’s north and south at odds: while the Germans and Dutch want conclusions that allude to the problem at this summit, some Mediterranean governments want a non-committal discussion for now – but diplomats say they may be open to agreeing something in writing at the next summit, in December.
The latest draft compromise proposed by Michel would the stress the the importance of the “application of existing legislation,” a clear nod to the Dublin III dispute.
Magnus Lund Nielsen contributed reporting.
[Edited by Daniel Eck]
Source: euractiv.com
