On Friday 13 October in Luxembourg, the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU announced that it would submit a new compromise text to the member states at the beginning of November. This will focus on reform of the so-called Dublin regulation, which organises national responsibility on the processing of asylum requests.
A Home Affairs Council may also be organised on Thursday 9 November to provide the framework for discussions about this new compromise. The Estonian Presidency will have to, nonetheless, confirm that this meeting is going ahead.
The draft regulation was proposed before summer 2016 (see EUROPE 11546) and is taking up too much space because of the differences on the principle of compulsory solidarity and the permanent asylum seeker relocation mechanism in the event of a crisis.
Without providing any details about the elements of a possible compromise, the Estonian Minister explained that this would be based on the cycle of bilateral talks that the Acting Presidency of the Council has just concluded on this subject. It would also be based on the elements formulated by the previous Slovak and Maltese Presidencies that advocate alternative means of solidarity and minimum compulsory reception for all member states for relocated asylum seekers.
On Friday, the Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that he was optimistic about a possible agreement in principle between member states on this text by the end of the year, since MEPs will adopt their negotiating position on Thursday 19 October.
According to one diplomatic source, however, this objective is “still going to be difficult” to attain. According to this source, we should not have “too high hopes” regarding this new compromise.
Out of all the other texts in the “asylum” package, this work has, in fact, made the most progress, according to the information provided to ministers on this subject during the presentation of the progress report.
The Estonian Presidency would like to obtain a partial political agreement (general approach) on the directive governing conditions of reception. Together with the European Parliament, it would like to reach an inter-institution agreement on the conditions that asylum seekers should fulfil. With regard to the EURODAC system, the Council and Parliament are still opposed to the police authorities having access to asylum seekers’ biometric databases or data regarding the processing of minors. On the other hand, discussions appear to be very advanced on the future European asylum agency.
Resettlement. At dinner, ministers discussed new resettlement places for refugees. On 27 September, the Commission called for the European Union to make a commitment in favour of a new resettlement exercise focusing on 50,000 places over a two years period (see EUROPE 11871). Commissioner Avramopoulos indicated that 25,000 places have so far been announced, of which 10,000 applied to France.
Member states have until 31 October to clarify their commitments, which, as explained by the Estonian Minister for Home Affairs, Andres Anvelt, would be on a “voluntary basis”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)