In Brussels on Thursday 18 May, the home affairs ministers and their representatives will seek to make progress on the laborious reform of the Dublin Regulation, which organises responsibilities for the processing of asylum applications between member states. It is, however, by no means certain that the Maltese Presidency will be able to keep to the objective set by the European Council in December of reaching consensus in June.
In this dossier, which seems to have been stagnating for several weeks, there are still clashes over the question of effective solidarity and the obligation upon all member states to take in extra asylum seekers in the framework of the emergency relocation procedures. According to the Maltese Presidency, the member states will be asked on Thursday to send out political signals and lines to move forward, but they are not expected to have to discuss the technical details, such as the figures put forward by the Presidency in April (see EUROPE 11774) at a Coreper meeting, which consisted of allowing countries reluctant to carry out relocation measures to compensate for their lack of participation financially.
Amongst other things, the proposal stated that countries failing to comply with their hosting obligations would have to pay the sum of €60,000 for every asylum seeker they fail to take in to the countries taking charge of them in their place. However, no significant breakthrough had been observed by the end of this meeting.
“We are all aware of the difficulties and challenges, but we will continue to try”, a Presidency source said, but was unable to say whether they would succeed. The European Commission seems in any case to have decided to speed up actions against the countries still opposing relocation and announced in Strasbourg on Tuesday 16 May that it would be prepared, from June, to start infringement proceedings against Hungary and Poland, which have not so far accepted a single relocated asylum seeker into their territories.
For the remainder, the ministers will have a working lunch with the defence ministers, over which they will discuss cooperation to fight terrorism. In the evening, there will be a dinner with the development ministers to discuss the external dimension of the EU's migration policies and how these dovetail with development policies.
They will also adopt conclusions on the strategy to fight organised crime and serious crimes over the period 2018-2021. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)