Brussels, 21/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - Following a week of technical discussions and two meetings of member states' ambassadors to the EU, on Sunday 20 and Monday 21 September, home affairs ministers, meeting in Brussels on Tuesday 22, will seek to reach agreement on the mechanism to resettle, over two years, 120,000 people in need of international protection with the adoption, more specifically, of a Council decision - something they failed to do on Monday 14 September at an initial extraordinary meeting devoted to the migration crisis.
The goal of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU remains a decision reached by consensus and avoidance of a qualified majority vote that would outflank the least willing countries, which include Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic. Discussions remained “difficult” on Monday afternoon, a Council source revealed, with the ambassadors' meeting due to continue into the evening.
After two sessions, the ambassadors' meeting seemed to have come to an initial agreement on the number of 120,000 asylum seekers to be resettled over two years, with all member states being involved. According to a source, on Monday, no delegation expressly refused to take in migrants. Nothing, however, is certain and everything may change. On the technical level, the discussion was principally on how these 120,000 people would be shared out, a potential source of difficulty.
As had been the case in July, in talks on the decision to resettle 40,000 asylum seekers, the allocation criteria used by the Commission should no longer be the reference. While the figure of 120,000 “was not challenged” a diplomatic source said, several delegations fear that binding weighting criteria that involve population size, national wealth, unemployment levels and past records on taking in asylum seeker might pre-empt future discussions on the compulsory, permanent allocation mechanism also proposed by the Commission on 9 September. Many fear that “these criteria will become the reference criteria for the next mechanism”, the diplomatic source added.
The ministerial discussions will also focus on a proposal to relocate 120,000 people that is quite separate from the one announced by Jean-Claude Juncker on 9 September, since Hungary has confirmed it did not want to benefit from the relocation mechanism. This could have repercussions for the other countries and on the quotas they are due to accept. The draft Council decision put on the agenda for adoption will, therefore, only relate to Greece and Italy at this stage. On Monday, however, attempts had to be made to settle the issue of what to do with the 54,000 people who formed Hungary's share of the total number to be relocated. If it were decided that the figure of 120,000 were to remain as a symbolic threshold, the member states might begin by relocating only 76,000 and retaining a “reserve” of 54,000 people to be used later to assist a country that is subject to strong migratory pressure, as may be the case for Croatia now that Hungary has closed its borders. A further possibility is that the 54,000 may be used to ease the situation in Italy and Greece, with Greece the priority given the drop in asylum seekers arriving in Italy.
Any such reallocation could have direct consequences on figures and the respective shares of the other member states. That is precisely what was debated late on Monday afternoon, with some countries wondering if they would not have to take in more people than the number to which they had already committed themselves before their parliaments.
Hungary will have to take in further migrants. The situation for Hungary is paradoxical. Although it will no longer benefit from the relocation mechanism, it will nonetheless have to take in a share of the asylum seekers from Greece and Italy. According to working appendices that were being circulated, over two years, Hungary would have to take 988 asylum seekers from Greece and 306 from Italy.
Unlike the July decision, it will not be a matter of allowing member states to make quantified commitments, said a further Council source, but of persuading them to agree to the quotas proposed by the Commission. No member state would have the right to take no asylum seekers, as, for example, Austria decided to do in July.
“Everyone is wanting to avoid the painful scenario” as to whether the mechanism should be voluntary or compulsory. “The objective is not to repeat June's debate”, said the diplomatic source, referring to the European summit of 25 June when over six hours were given to discussion of this issue. One possibility could be to move towards a decision similar to the one of 20 July, based on a binding Council decision and a resolution containing country-by-country figures, said this source. Another source said, however, that the idea of a simple resolution containing the figures had not really been discussed on Monday.
Poland believes it is important “to find some form of words that makes it possible to say we remain masters of the issue”, said the diplomatic source. Neither does Warsaw wish to be put in a position where it has to make a choice between the Visegrad countries and the rest of the EU states.
A further matter to be cleared up on Monday was the temporary solidarity clause proposed by the Commission which allows resettlement opt-outs for a period of up to one year in exchange for payment of 0.02% of GDP of the country concerned to the European budget. Changes have been brought to this controversial clause. In the latest discussions, provision was made for opt-outs from resettlement for only six months without incurring any payment, and it would also be possible for countries to take only 70% of their quotas of refugees and to make payment for the other 30% at the rate of €6,500 per person who should have been resettled. Nothing appears yet to have been decided on Monday afternoon.
Expectations on “hotspots”. Some delegations expect strong language on the famous “hotspots”, notably France, which is keen to see their role clearly spelt out in the Council decision. The difficulty for ministers is how to articulate the hotspots, some of which are already up and running in Italy, with the relocation process. The relocation of 40,000 people, as formally approved on 14 September, has not yet begun, meaning that ministers have no concrete experience on which to base any decisions.
For many, failure to come to a decision on Tuesday evening on resettling the 120,000 asylum seekers would be a “doomsday scenario”, if the matter had to be returned to heads of state and/or government meeting on 23 September, the diplomatic source added.
The 23 September summit has to allow discussion of the other issues, such as management of external borders, on which some are not expecting any concrete outcome, the list of safe countries of origin, the inclusion of Turkey on which remains to be decided, cooperation with Turkey in efforts to counter people smugglers, the situation in Syria and financing of the World Food Programme for Syrian refugees. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Mathieu Bion)