Brussels, 16/07/2015(Agence Europe) - With the European home affairs ministers meeting again in Brussels on Monday 20 July to try to finalise the distribution of 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, the civil liberties committee (LIBE) of the European Parliament argued, on Thursday 16 July, in favour of a “binding” emergency mechanism, in a report which was itself non-binding.
The European Parliament, which is only consulted on this subject due to the legal basis (Article 78-3 of the Treaty) of the legislative proposal, got to work and drafted its report very quickly, in this case by the German MEP Ska Keller (Greens/EFA). The Parliament as a whole will take position in September.
In this resolution (which was adopted by 42 votes in favour and 14 against), the MEPs call for a “binding” relocation system for these 40,000 individuals and the creation of a permanent emergency mechanism which can be activated whenever a migration crisis occurs. Within this permanent mechanism, which the European Commission is expected to propose before the end of this year, the European Parliament would be co-legislator.
Its obligatory nature does not correspond to talks underway at the Council. The June European Council decided that this distribution mechanism would be voluntary, at least for the proportions of migrants to allocate to each country (see EUROPE 11343). In Luxembourg on 9 July, the ministers failed to reach this figure of 40,000 migrants, prompting the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU to call a further meeting, on Monday 20 July (see EUROPE 11356).
The Parliament's opinion contains other elements of friction. The MEPs wanted the asylum seekers' preferences to be taken into account. Under their project, the asylum seekers would have the option, before being resettled, to list the member states in order of preference, and to give reasons for their choices according to criteria such as family, social and cultural links - for instance language skills, or having previously lived, studied or worked in the country.
In order to avoid secondary movements, consent would “theoretically be required before resettlement” and, in the absence of the consent of the asylum seeker, “the person would theoretically not have to be resettled”, in the opinion of the LIBE committee.
The discussions underway at the Council do not detail these aspects, but only recognise that the interests of children must take precedence in the decision to relocate a migrant, whilst family links and linguistic-based preferences for a given country would also be taken into account. The member states feel that this resettlement decision must, however, be entirely a matter for the country of arrival - Italy or Greece - and for the country to which the asylum seeker is to be resettled. And the asylum seeker would have no right to choose.
For the remainder, the MEPs feel the limit of 40,000 asylum seekers over two years should be flexible. “A further increase should be considered, if necessary, in order to adapt to flows of refugees and rapidly changing trends”, they state. The MEPs also included a reference to the Western Balkans route, “which is now increasingly used by people fleeing war and persecution”.
Decision is expected on Monday 20 July. On Monday, the ministers will be called upon to make concrete decisions. In addition to the conclusions on the resettlement of 20,000 people currently outside the EU, the ministers will be asked to decide, by qualified majority, which elements of the Commission's proposal will be binding, such as the functioning of the aid schemes to the frontline countries (hotspots), financing and the obligations of Italy and Greece in this mechanism.
On the other hand, as the individual country quotas have been removed from the scope of this qualified-majority decision by the European Council, the ministers will seek to finalise a resolution on the distribution of these 40,000 asylum seekers. It is in the interests of the member states for this resolution to be on a voluntary basis, as each country is authorised to propose the number of migrants it is prepared to welcome.
On Thursday, it was not certain whether the participating countries - the whole of the EU with the exception of Denmark, the United Kingdom and, theoretically, Ireland - had reached this level of 40,000 people. The meeting of 9 July allowed progress to be made towards this objective, but not all of the delegations had put forward their figures. (Solenn Paulic)