Brussels, 11/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - Quotas of refugees for each of the member states as a way of both responding to the urgency of the migrant flows reaching the European coasts and the need to take in refugees from the war in Syria currently stuck in that country's neighbouring states is the (controversial) proposal that the European Commission could make on Wednesday 13 May when it presents its Agenda on Migration, if a draft communication seen by EUROPE is to believed.
The Agenda, which will run to some 15 pages in length, will consider how to respond to the many losses of vessels in the Mediterranean Sea over the last few weeks as well as how to deal with people traffickers and smugglers (the Frontex Triton operation has already had its resources tripled even though Rome and Frontex may find it impossible to agree on the operation plan before the end of May) and legal migration - especially work-related immigration, another possible bone of contention with the member states.
While the word “quota” does not feature as such in the provisional draft communication, the idea does, indeed, appear to propose in the first instance an emergency system for distributing refugees among the member states in accordance with a number of criteria, such as GDP, traditions of taking in asylum seekers (how many they take per year as a general rule) and the size of population. Then, by the end of the year, the Commission will turn this proposal into specific legislation putting in place a lasting and compulsory system for distributing migrants arriving on the Italian, Maltese or Greeks shores.
This same system of distributing refugees among the member states, with the same allocation criteria, would apply to Syrians who have taken refuge, as part of so-called resettlement programmes, in UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Here again, according to the provisional document, the European Commission will bring forward recommendations by the end of May on a European resettlement scheme, though the numbers in such a scheme had not yet been determined.
The Commission speaks of the UNHCR's hoped-for resettlement figure of 20,000 per year. These people, taken directly from UNHCR camps, will again be distributed among the member states using the same criteria. The European resettlement scheme, initially voluntary, could become compulsory by 2016 by means of specific legislation, the draft communication notes. The Commission could allocate €50 million for the scheme in 2015-2016.
The Commission is not expected, however, to make any proposals on granting humanitarian visas by member states' embassies and consulates in the third countries, this aspect of legal ways of reaching the EU not being specified. Neither will it make any mention of migrant holding centres in third countries, notably Libya, for people wishing to claim asylum.
Quotas announced by Juncker at end of April. Natasha Bertaud, the spokesperson for Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, was careful on Monday 11 May to downplay the content of this document “which will be discussed by the College of Commissioners only on 13 May” and which is “likely to change”. She also stated that the legal basis chosen for this emergency system for distributing migrants (Article 78.3 of the treaty) had not yet been cast in tablets of stone. Nor, indeed, had the number of member states that would be involved (some may possibly seek opt-outs). She noted, however, that this principle of quotas was not a fresh announcement. On 29 April, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker himself, recapitulating before the Parliament on the outcome of the extraordinary European Council of 23 April, announced that the Commission would present a resettlement scheme for migrants arriving in huge numbers on the EU's southern shores.
It is also several months since Commissioner Avramopoulos indicated that he was giving consideration to criteria for sharing out asylum seekers in Europe. Indeed, for a time, it was thought that he would raise the matter for EU home affairs ministers to discuss at their informal Council meeting on 12 and 13 March. Before the European Parliament, Juncker did not hide his disappointment at the outcome of the European Council called after yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean that had claimed the lives of 800 people. He said the Commission would be more ambitious.
Bertaud said that, in their conclusions on 23 April, the member states had agreed to consider the options on putting in place an emergency resettlement scheme for migrants. The member states did, however, state that any such mechanism had to be voluntary.
Initially presented in British press reports as an attempt to tie the hands of the country and of its new government, the draft communication brought a reaction from UK Conservatives. In a press release, MEP Timothy Kirkhope (ECR) called on everyone to remain calm, and he qualified suggestions that the country would be forced to take in migrants as “hysterical”. He re-stated the red line put down by freshly re-elected Prime Minister David Cameron, who, on 23 April, and shown himself to be very firm, categorically ruling out that any migrant rescued at sea by a British vessel could seek asylum in the UK. France said on Monday that it backed the idea of quotas but a source highlighted a few days ago that Paris was not necessarily in favour of a binding mechanism with set numbers.
Going after migrant smuggling networks is another aspect of the Agenda, with the task falling particularly to High Representative Federica Mogherini who is trying to set up an internationally mandated CSDP operation. Europol will be called upon to a greater extent to identify traffickers.
Discussion on Dublin regulation in 2016. The draft Agenda contains other suggestions. The Commission could make available an additional envelope of €60 million to the front-line countries, in addition to the deployment of European Asylum Support Office (EASO) teams. Despite overtures on sharing out among the member states migrants arriving in large numbers in the south of the EU, the Commission has not (at least not officially) called into question the so-called Dublin system which governs responsibility for asylum applications within the EU.
Thus, noting in the draft document, that in 2014 five countries (Germany, Sweden, Italy, France and Hungary, according to Eurostat) dealt with 72% of all asylum requests EU-wide, the Commission could, at the end of May, propose guidelines on improving the finger-printing of migrants. This would prevent migrants slipping through the cracks and fleeing to another EU state to be registered as an asylum seeker. The countries of the South would nonetheless continue to benefit from emergency measures and relaxation of the Dublin system would be permitted in the event of sudden and difficult to manage flows. In any event, the Commission is due to review the regulation and decide whether revision is needed to “achieve a fairer distribution of asylum seekers in Europe”. Countries such as Poland and the Baltic States are among those which take in the fewest asylum applicants.
According to the draft communication, the Commission, as it announced, will also try to make progress on legal migration to the EU, given, for example, the ageing of the EU population and the shortage of labour. Without immigration, the Commission says, the working-age population will fall by 17.5% in the next decade. Acutely aware that it is treading on dangerous ground, with unemployment remaining high in some parts of the EU and providing an easy argument for populist parties, the Commission is speaking essentially about well qualified migrants at this stage. It will continue for member states to determine how many work-related migrants they want to take in, it says. By the end of May, the Commission will launch a public consultation on the under-used blue card directive. (Solenn Paulic)