Brussels, 06/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - EU home affairs ministers, meeting in Brussels on Monday 9 November, will attempt to deliver on the decision they have adopted over recent months in efforts to address the migration crisis, in particular the decisions on relocating 160,000 refugees already in the EU and on the “hotspots” in Italy and Greece (see EUROPE 11394 and 11395).
Ministers are expected to summarise their discussions in general conclusions on managing the refugee crisis, a copy of which document, dated 5 November, EUROPE has obtained. The same document formed the basis for preparatory discussions, on Friday 6 November, by member states' ambassadors to the EU prior to the ministerial meeting. According to this provisional document, ministers will try to speed up the relocation process: only 106 refugees have so far been relocated, with France preparing to take in 19 more on Friday. They will also seek to agree on a final deadline for submitting their reception capacities for the first relocations from Greece and Italy, some time between now and Monday 16 November.
By that same date, member states will, still according to the provisional document, be required to appoint their liaison officers in Greece and Italy. They will also have to respond to the requests for additional staff made in October by the Frontex and EASO agencies (775 and 374 respectively). By 6 November, 353 and 157 additional staff respectively had been pledged. They may also be called on to assist Greece and Italy in registering migrants by providing them with “Eurodac” machines, so-called after the name of the regulation that requires asylum seekers to allow themselves to be fingerprinted on their arrival in the EU.
The registration of migrants will also be discussed on Monday. Ministers will broach the issue of migrants who refuse to be registered. They will discuss how the authorities should behave in the face of refusal to be registered or to be relocated to a particular country, a source in the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU said on Friday.
According to the document put to the ambassadors for discussion, ministers will state the requirement that EU law be applied. While remaining true to the principle of non-refoulement, they could point out that European law allows fast-track asylum request procedures at the border or in “transit zones”, rejection of repeated asylum applications and coercion measures to be taken, including, as a last resort, holding migrants for a maximum period of time deemed necessary to finalise procedures.
According to the Presidency source ministers are likely, too, to discuss whether to set up, in addition to “hotspots”, additional migrant registration and asylum request processing centres, which could assist with implementing relocation decisions. This could involve several member states and not just Greece and Italy, suggested another source.
The ministerial meeting will further provide the opportunity to speak about aid for the countries which are finding it difficult to meet their obligations on controlling the EU's external borders, with the member states being asked to assist these countries to improve controls. Assistance of this sort will be delivered through measures involving the Frontex agency, including deploying RABIT rapid intervention teams at the borders. The EU wants to deploy a RABIT team in Greece. Operation Poseidon off the coast of Greece could be extended until 1 December, the provisional document suggests.
Among the other points scheduled for discussion on Monday is the strengthening of the role of the Europol agency in tackling smuggling networks. Ministers are likely to call for progress to be made between now and the JHA Council at the start of December on the legislative proposals that are under way, including those drafting a list of safe countries of origin and a permanent, compulsory mechanism for sharing out refugees, something that remains very unpopular with a section of the member states (see EUROPE 11385). In December, the provisional document states, ministers will discuss in depth the reintroduction of temporary controls at the internal borders of the Schengen area, after several member states have taken such a step since mid-September.
Lastly, discussion will also turn to Turkey, with the speeding up of the timetable for visa liberalisation for Turkish nationals and the readmission agreement on migrants who cannot claim protection in the EU. The financial strand of the EU-Turkey action plan will not be discussed at this meeting (see EUROPE 11403). Readers may recall that Turkey has requested funding of €3 billion per year to implement this action plan. European Commissioners Frans Timmermans and Johannes Hahn will travel to Ankara this week to continue talks. The draft also says that the first European liaison officers could be in place in a number of key third countries, including Niger, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
France sets out its commitments. The French government said on Friday that 19 Eritrean refugees would be taken by France from Italy and that it had put the proposal to Italy and Greece that it take 200 people in November, 300 in December and 400 in January from these two countries. This commitment would carry the offers of reception places made by member states to 2,284 (out of a planned total of 160,000).
The Swedish government has formally informed the Commission of its wish to make use of the reserve of 54,000 relocation places left by ministers on 22 September. The Commission has not yet given any indication of when it would give its response to this request or, indeed, how it would assess it. The decision has to be taken by the Commission and it has already indicated that it understood the current situation in Sweden, the country that has taken in the highest number of refugees by number of inhabitants.
Fresh aid for Slovenia. On Friday, the Commission announced financial aid of €10.17 million to help Slovenia manage the migratory flows. This money will come from the asylum, migration and integration fund (AMIF) and will be used to fund the police presence at the border with Croatia and refugee reception capacity, which could be increased to 7,500 place in Slovenia. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)