Addressing European leaders in Strasbourg on Wednesday 13 June, the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, again urged them to react immediately to the urgent migration issue and to finalise a short and long term strategy to respond to the migratory drama that is unfolding, and to put an end to the squabbling between member states which only takes them further from a solution. The problem, he said, cannot be resolved at “national level alone or by squabbling between member states”.
The Italian was speaking at a debate on the situation created by the Aquarius, the vessel chartered by two NGOs and full of migrant escapees, after Malta and Italy had refused to allow the vessel to land. The vessel will finally go to Spain. Such a situation has also caused considerable tension between Rome and Paris, and the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, had even at one time contemplated cancelling his meeting with Emmanuel Macron. The meeting is finally to take place in Paris for Friday 15 June.
The “Parliament has adopted a Dublin reform that can be a real base” for member states, said Tajani, going on to add that he will be in Vienna on Monday 18 June to meet Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and put forth Parliament’s proposals as adopted in October 2017.
At the beginning of next week, European Council President Donald Tusk will begin a tour of the European capitals in order to prepare the summit on 29 June, that many fear will be conclusive on the controversial reform of the Dublin regulation.
Donald Tusk will go to Rome and the countries most concerned by review of the Dublin regulation and by reform of the asylum system but his exact itinerary was not yet known on Thursday 14 June. At this stage, there is no “indication” that Tusk will prepare a compromise note, said a source from the institution, but he should base his consultations on the work by the different presidencies – Bulgarian but also Estonian and Slovakian. The president of the European Council does not have a “magic solution”, in any case.
A solution during the 29 June summit promises to be even more difficult to find due to the considerable rift within the German government. On Thursday 14 June, Chancellor Merkel was to seek to reach a compromise with her minister for the interior, Horst Seehofer, from the CSU, who hopes to be able to send all asylum seekers arriving in Germany back to the EU countries where they were first registered, as foreseen in the current Dublin regulation.
According to the German media, such a programme does not please Merkel and could sway the majority to a dangerous point. A Franco-German council of ministers is planned in Paris on Tuesday but, on Thursday, some sources were asking whether Merkel would be able to make proposals on that occasion in order to seek, at the end of the month, to come closer to the famous European consensus sought on Dublin and asylum. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)