Brussels, 12/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The subject will not be put to the vote, but will give rise to discussions expected to be tough. In Luxembourg on Tuesday 16 June, the European home affairs ministers will discuss the proposals presented by the Commission on 13 and 27 May in the framework of the European Migration Agenda (see EUROPE 11322 and 11314).
Centre-stage will be the controversial mechanism for the relocation between the member states of 40,000 migrants in need of international protection. Not much work has so far been carried out on this dossier at technical level and it has only been studied twice at the Council, in a working group and at the level of the ambassadors of the member states to the EU (Coreper).
The Latvian Presidency of the Council therefore does not anticipate that a decision will be made on this mechanism on Tuesday. However, a discussion at political level is expected to provide a few indications as to what will become of these proposals and the speed with which the dossier will be able to move forward.
The Commission and a number of member states in favour of the mechanism (such as France and Germany) argue that the clock is ticking and their aim is still to reach an agreement before the summer, when the largest numbers of migrants are expected to land. “But it will be tough”, several sources acknowledge. Since the start of this year, nearly 100,000 migrants have arrived in the EU via the central and eastern Mediterranean, with Greece having experienced an explosion in arrivals, but also via the Balkans (see EUROPE 11329).
On 27 May, the European Commission proposed to redistribute 40,000 asylum seekers between the 25 participating member states (Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom have specific derogations), including 24,000 for Italy and 16,000 for Greece. This will be calculated on the basis of the following criteria: population size, national GDP, unemployment rate and efforts already made to host migrants.
These criteria are not to everybody's liking. France, for instance, would like to see the criterion related to efforts already made to have a weight of 30% in the final calculation, compared to 10% as proposed. The Netherlands would like population density to be taken into account as well.
Currently, some ten countries (Eastern countries, Portugal and Spain) want the mechanism to be based on article 78.3 of the Treaty, in other words voluntary. A similar number of others, including France and Germany, argue in favour of an obligatory mechanism, as long as the criteria suit them. “And there are those which don't know where they stand”, a European source told us on Friday 12 June.
More clarity after the meeting?
To complicate matters further, there is also a discussion on the qualified-majority voting rule. There is already a qualified majority at the Council to push this distribution mechanism through, according to some sources, at least under the rules of the Treaty of Lisbon. However, if even one country so requested, it is still possible to bring the rules under the Treaty of Nice into play. If that was the case, “that qualified majority is gone”, the same source told us. The Czech Republic is reported to have threatened to invoke this rule. Other countries claim that there is a blocking minority on this dossier.
The proposals also raise many technical issues, a source from a country which will not be taking part in the mechanism told us on Friday. “Can you legally force a migrant to go to a country he or she does not want to go to? What happens to asylum seekers trying to go to a member state other than the one assigned to them?”, this figure said.
Will Tuesday's meeting shed any light on the matter? “No positions will be taken” until after it, a European source told us. The forthcoming Luxembourg Presidency of the Council will then be able to decide what steps to take. A trend could emerge on Tuesday as to whether the mechanism should be voluntary or obligatory. “However, it is equally possible that no trend will emerge from the meeting and that the European Council (at the end of June) will have to be asked to map out the way ahead”, the same source added.
One of the areas of work currently being looked at is to decide on a third way, middle ground between a voluntary system and an obligatory one.
In any case, the Commission will not make any changes to its proposals on an obligatory basis, it has reiterated. President Jean-Claude Juncker expressed irritation at these stumbling blocks, on the radio station France Culture on Friday. Lamenting the fact that his plan has met with “no spontaneous approval”, he stressed that “we cannot leave the management of this massive influx in the hands of Italy, Greece, Malta and Spain alone”.
Agreement on data protection anticipated
On Monday 15 June, the European justice ministers are expected to reach a political agreement in principle (general approach) on the general regulation on the protection of personal data (the directive on the criminal framework is not yet ready), which will allow negotiations with the European Parliament to start.
The compromise text seems to suit most of the delegations, “even though there are still some good bits and some less good”, a source reacted on Friday.
Some of the member states have concerns about the costs of the reform to business. The United Kingdom shares these concerns, and feels that the so-called single-window mechanism is still too bureaucratic. Other countries are struggling to swallow the portability of data, for instance from one operator to another, or the division of responsibility between businesses and their subcontractors, among them France. Other states, such as Austria and Slovenia, want a tougher line to be taken. They argue that the text does not do enough to protect privacy.
Any other business. The other issues are related to the European prosecutor's office and the circulation of public documents. On Tuesday, the home affairs ministers will return to the follow-up on the fight against terrorism. (Solenn Paulic)