Strasbourg, 09/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - Taking action to respond to emergency situations while laying the foundations to help Europe better manage future crises: this is what European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed in his much awaited State of the Union address in Strasbourg on Wednesday 9 September. In the address, he unveiled a raft of proposals (including three legislative proposals) to help member states respond to the migration crisis and the arrival of asylum seekers.
A raft of measures that has been much talked about in recent days, and which includes a list of safe countries, a relocation mechanism for 120,000 people (mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Eritreans) and a permanent and obligatory relocation tool, but which Juncker adorned with a few announcements. In 2016, the Commission is expected to bring forward a package on legal economic migration in order to provide for labour needs. The Commission will also tackle the harmonisation of asylum systems, and Juncker would like all member states to be able to allow asylum seekers to enter the labour market as soon as possible.
However, on Wednesday it was especially Juncker's vision for the responses to be given to the migration challenge that the MEPs were awaiting. In a very particular personal context, with Juncker having lost his mother recently and his father being seriously ill in hospital, he urged the member states “not to be afraid” but to take courageous decisions in solidarity with each other, when “nearly 500,000 people have reached Europe” since the start of the year and “the vast majority of them (…) fleeing from war in Syria, the terror of the Islamic State in Libya or dictatorship in Eritrea”.
The figures speak for themselves and are frightening, Juncker said, and the most affected EU member states are Greece, with over 213,000 refugees, Hungary, with over 145,000, and Italy, with over 115,000. This is not the time to let fear take a hold, Juncker said, calling on the member states to remember their past. “This is first of all a matter of humanity and of human dignity. And for Europe it is also a matter of historical fairness”, he said, underlining that almost every European, from the French Huguenots in the 17th century to the Hungarians in 1956, “has at one time been a refugee”.
A little later, during a press conference, Juncker also warned against the emotions that are roused with photos and that fall again just as quickly. Saying that the death of little three-year old Aylan was tragic, who was found drowned on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, Juncker stated that every day fishermen are bringing up the dead bodies of children in their nets. Public opinion, he said, is very often mobilised or inspired by images and photos, but when the shock of the image is over we risk returning to the mediocrity of the debate as has developed in recent months in some countries. Juncker summed up his message in two key words to the member states and actors involved - “solidarity and courage”.
Three legislative texts and communications. In concrete terms, as the Commission had explained on 3 September, it proposes an emergency mechanism to relocate 120,000 people from Greece, Italy and Hungary to other EU member states (50,400 people, 15,600 and 54,000 will have to be relocated respectively). This proposal is added to that of relocating 40,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy, which had been developed in May and has met with difficulty at the Council.
As in May, it is an issue of using Article 78§3 of the Treaty, which requires qualified majority and consultation of the European Parliament, and of proposing an obligatory distribution of the asylum seekers among the other member country on the basis of four criteria. These criteria remain overall the same as those from May with some points eased, with a weighting of 40% for the size of the population, 40% for the GDP, between 10 and 30% for the average number of asylum applications ongoing over the last four years, and between 10 and 30% for the unemployment rate. Spain, which today seems to support the Commission, had protested in May about the unemployment rate criterion which, set at 10%, seemed too weak to Spain. The Commission, on the other hand, this time imagined a temporary solidarity clause - in other words, a system of payment to the European budget of 0.002% of GDP for a country which was not able to relocate migrants. This system appears almost impossible to implement, as the member state in question would have to justify its decision by an event such as a natural disaster in order to deviate from the system, and the Commission wants to decide alone the legitimacy of the argument.
In any case, this proposal will not affect the countries with special provisions, such as Denmark (opt-out) or Ireland and the United Kingdom (opt-in rights), although Ireland stated on Wednesday that it may take a small number of refugees.
Basically, Germany, France and Spain will take the lion's share of refugees: respectively 31,443, 24,031 and 14,931 people to be relocated. They are followed by Poland, with 9,287 people, who will come mainly from Hungary.
The European Commission states that “it will not be easy”, but securing the support of the member states for this mechanism “is feasible”, one source stated. As Spain and France are now on board, which was not necessarily the case back in May, the Commission is confident that a qualified majority can be reached. The meeting of the home affairs ministers on 14 September will bring with it an initial test, as Juncker hopes that the ministers will “agree on the broad outlines”. In any case, it will be in the light of this meeting that a decision can be made as to whether or not to call an extraordinary immigration summit.
A further provision is a permanent and obligatory relocation mechanism, which would allow the EU to protect itself in the long term. This mechanism, which would be based on co-decision with the EP, will modify the Dublin regulation. This permanent tool will be based on quotas calculated using the same weighting criteria and will be triggered once a certain number of refugees reach the EU, taking account of, for instance, the increase in the number of asylum seekers over the last six months. This mechanism will also apply to asylum seekers of nationalities with recognition rates of more than 75% in the EU and the same temporary solidarity clause may be requested. This would not concern member states with either an opt-out or an opt-in.
Warning to the candidate countries
On Wednesday, the Commission also presented a draft regulation aiming to establish a list of 'safe countries' whose nationals will no longer be able to make bogus asylum applications in the EU. Although asylum rights remain individual and the Geneva Convention of 1951 will continue to apply, the countries of the Western Balkans (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania) plus Turkey have very low recognition rates for these asylum applications and must be considered safe countries. Candidates to join the EU, they theoretically respect the rule of law and the fundamental rights. However, Juncker warned, all so-called safe countries may be taken off the list if the living conditions in those countries deteriorate and this would have a direct impact on the country's application to join the EU. “The safe countries on this list need to be aware that if they are removed from the list on the grounds that the fundamental rights are not guaranteed, they would forfeit any chance of joining the EU”.
Among the other proposals put forward on Wednesday, the Commission suggested a handbook on returns policy. In 2016, the Commission will propose, amongst other things, to extend the mandate of Frontex to speed up these returns. The following will also be presented this Wednesday: an emergency fund of €1.8 billion for Africa (see other article) and a communication on the external dimension of the refugee crisis, together with a communication on rules for public procurement, notably to respond to infrastructure needs of local authorities.
Overall, the European Parliament lent its unstinting support to the Commission's measures, but will take position more specifically this Thursday in a resolution. The groups EPP, S&D and ALDE, together with a handful of MEPs from the Greens/EFA group, have joined forces in a common text. The European Parliament also gave its blessing to the relocation of 40,000 people, adopting the report by Ska Keller (Greens/EFA, Germany) by a comfortable majority. (Solenn Paulic)