Brussels, 07/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament hopes that the member states will stick to their pledges on resettling 40,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy. That, in substance, is the message sent by most of the MEPs on the civil liberties committee at their meeting in Strasbourg on Monday evening 6 July.
With EU home affairs ministers due to meet in Luxembourg on Thursday 9 July to discuss once again the Commission proposals which would see Article 78-3 of the Treaty triggered in response to the emergency caused by the influx of migrants, Parliament is currently preparing its opinion on this issue. MEPs, who will only be consulted at this stage, are also ready to respond to this emergency mechanism, as its rapporteur, Ska Keller (Greens/EFA, Germany), said. They aim to submit a position by the start of September at the latest (the Council has until the end of July to adopt a decision). They also intend to have their voice heard in the longer term.
Keller made plain the view that the European Parliament had to be a co-legislator and that its voice will be better heard on the permanent resettlement mechanism that the European Commission intends to propose at the end of the year. “Parliament does not want just to be consulted”, she indicated.
In Keller's view, the conclusions of the European Council of 25 June on immigration had, in any case, been seen to be somewhat wanting. On 25 June, after six hours of discussion, the heads of state and/or government had managed only to agree on the threshold of 40,000 people to be resettled over two years and even this came at the price of a distancing from the binding, country-by-country distribution criteria proposed by the Commission.
“Since the start of 2015, many more than 40,000 people have arrived in the EU”, Keller noted. She would like the member states to commit to resettling 50,000 people. According to the European Council conclusions, every country should, in theory, participate in the resettlement mechanism, with the exception of the United Kingdom, which has an opt-out and has made clear that it will not participate; Denmark and Ireland have not as yet made any formal announcement.
Some of the MEPs who spoke in the debate argued for other criteria to be taken into account, for example, the wishes of the asylum seekers themselves. The past example of the pilot refugee resettlement project from Malta, a few years ago, had shown the limitations of resettlement in a country imposed by the authorities, argued a member of the EPP Group, though, he said, giving a free choice was not possible.
For the Conservative family, it is also crucial that, alongside solidarity, all the other aspects of the agenda for migration be put into effect - strengthening returns policy, readmission agreements and tackling illegal migration. Legal avenues for migration have, also, to be addressed. Hitherto, the European Commission has proposed only 20,000 resettlement places for, mainly Syrian, refugees currently in UN camps in third countries.
“The Commission isn't proposing very much on legal immigration”, said Cécile Kyenge (S&D, Italy), calling on her colleagues to concentrate on this. The European Parliament opinion should also pay particular attention to returns policy. “We have to make sure that it isn't arbitrary and that it fully complies with human rights”, she added.
Distribution criteria off the table. Home affairs ministers, who will meet in Luxembourg on 9 July, will be expected to make progress on quantified commitments so that resettlement of 40,000 in clear need of protection is agreed by the end of July. They will have to come to decisions on what is needed for migrants to qualify for international protection, the question being whether the regime should only be open to Syrians, Eritreans and possibly Syrians.
The Commission's allocation formula, based on national GDP, population size, national unemployment levels and the number of asylum seekers already taken in, is now no longer on the ministers' table, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU having proposed that it be scrapped, as confirmed by a document dating from 3 July published by Statewatch. On 25 June, the heads of state and/or government decided that agreement would be reached by consensus on how the 40,000 asylum seekers were to be shared. It is also possible at this stage that a specific regime will be put in place for Hungary, since a significant number of migrants have entered that country. In a move that has been heavily criticised by NGOs, the Hungarian parliament voted on 6 July to build an “anti-migrant wall” at the border with Serbia. (Solenn Paulic)