Brussels, 03/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - In Strasbourg next week, in his first State of the Union address, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, may announce a new plan to resettle 120,000 additional asylum seekers between the member states of the EU, a European source stated on Thursday 3 September. This new emergency mechanism would this time apply not only to Greece and Italy, but also to Hungary, and would come on top of the relocation mechanism of 40,000 asylum seekers already proposed at the end of May in the framework of the European Migration Agenda.
Among the new measures under discussion, the Commission is also planning to propose, in parallel to this new redistribution mechanism, a list of safe countries of origin together with a permanent redistribution system for asylum seekers in favour of all member states and which can be activated automatically in the event of a major migration crisis.
These ideas were certainly discussed by the Commissioners on Wednesday 2 September, at a session of the weekly meeting of the College devoted to the migration crisis, and Juncker was more specifically to discuss this proposal for a new resettlement system for a further 120,000 people directly with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, in Brussels on Thursday afternoon. According to information leaked on Twitter by the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir, amongst others, Juncker is expected to make the Hungarian Prime Minister a proposal to benefit from this mechanism.
Although the Commission declined to confirm this information, it did not deny it either. As the situation has grown so much worse since May (23,000 people arrived in Greece last week alone), the European Commission's idea would be to step up its aid to the so-called frontline countries by providing further support to Greece and Italy and, this time, offering Hungary the benefit of an asylum seeker resettlement system.
On Thursday 3 September, no clarifications were forthcoming as to the proportions in which the mechanism would be shared out between the three countries. In any case, Greece and Italy are expected to be able to 'send' more asylum seekers to other European countries than the numbers provided for in the quotas of 16,000 and 24,000 people respectively, as agreed upon in May. It is also reported that a system of hotspots will be proposed to Budapest. The weighting criteria decided upon in May (40% for population, 40% for national GDP, 10% for unemployment rate and 10% for asylum seekers hosted between 2010 and 2014) could also remain unchanged.
The same sum of €6,000 per person resettled would be offered to the member states in the framework of this new resettlement mechanism. “The budget would be sufficient” a European source explained on Thursday early afternoon, adding that the money would be taken from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), which was bolstered by €60 million in May (the total budget had been set at €3.1 billion for 2014-2020).
However, the European Commission is not expected to propose any new resettlement mechanism for refugees currently housed in camps in third countries, such as Syria's neighbouring countries. In May, the Commission proposed resettling 20,000 refugees over two years and the member states, assisted by the associated countries, reached a figure of 22,500 places available. At the moment, therefore, the Commission does not intend to call on the member states for a further resettlement effort.
Pressure on the Visegrad countries
Some observers feel that Juncker may see this proposal to increase the number of people to be resettled from Hungary, Italy and Greece to the other member states of the EU (with the exception of the three countries with an opt-out and opt-in rights) as a way of putting pressure on Hungary and setting its leader apart from the so-called Visegrad group, which is formally opposed to any redistribution of asylum seekers in the EU and which is made up of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
It was mainly these countries, assisted to a certain extent by Spain and the Baltic states, which managed to scupper the obligatory resettlement plans for 40,000 people from Greece and Italy in June, and then again in July.
This latest proposal of the Commission was not, in any case, discussed on Thursday morning by the Hungarian Prime Minister at an initial press conference with the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz (see related article).
The tragedy of Bodrum calls on leaders for action
Several political declarations were made on Thursday 3 September, after images were published the day before showing a three-year-old Syrian boy who washed up drowned on a beach in Bodrum, in Turkey. His family was trying to reach the island of Kos, in Greece, according to media reports.
Having been fairly sceptical, not to say hostile, towards the mechanism for the obligatory distribution of 40,000 asylum seekers at the end of June, arguing instead in favour of a voluntary system, the President of the European Counsel, Donald Tusk, said on Thursday, at a press conference with Viktor Orban, that the EU should offer the “fair distribution of at least 100,000 refugees”, he commented.
Referring to his Christian faith, the Polish president stressed that for a Christian, “race, religion or nationality” should have no bearing on the hosting of refugees. He went on to say that the member states were currently facing a “major test”, urging the leaders to redouble their efforts to respond to this “unprecedented crisis”.
On Thursday morning, the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, also said that the EU was at a turning point and a “critical moment” in its history, with a risk of divide “which cannot be ruled out”.
The French and German leaders, François Hollande and Angela Merkel respectively, have been in touch to develop new responses to the crisis.
Germany and France agree on the principle of “binding quotas” for the relocation of migrants for the countries of the European Union, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, explained on Thursday 3 September on a visit to Bern, Switzerland, AFP reports.
“I spoke this morning to the French President. The Franco-German position we will be putting to the European institutions is that those who need protection (…) get protection and that we need binding quotas within the European Union to share out our duties, this is the principle of solidarity”.
On Wednesday 2 September, the French, Italian and German foreign ministers also wrote to the High Representative of the EU, Federica Mogherini, to discuss external courses of action. The three leaders also argued in favour of a reinforced European asylum system and a fair distribution of people in need of protection (see other article). (Solenn Paulic)