European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos unveiled a memorandum on Thursday 21 June reflecting on migration, drawn up for European leaders at the summit of 28 and 29 June and also for the informal meeting on 24 June convened the previous day by Jean-Claude Juncker (see EUROPE 12045), for which there was still doubt on Thursday as to the number of participants. Italy on Wednesday evening suspended its participation in the mini-meeting, waiting to see whether the ideas taken up by its European partners move in the direction it desires.
Speaking in the midst of intra-European tension, Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos unveiled a memo taking up some ideas likely to meet Italy’s approval, like regional platforms for the landing of migrants (see EUROPE 12045) in Mediterranean countries outside the EU.
These would amount to drop-off locations in countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt for migrants rescued at sea and looked after by the IMO or UNHCR. These two organisations, along with the host countries, would decide whether to send the individuals likely to be eligible for asylum in Europe to resettlement programmes in the EU or voluntary return programmes for those not eligible.
No Mediterranean country outside the EU contacted to date has formally applied, admitted Dimitris Avramopoulos, but he said they had very good signals. The Commissioner said the disembarkation points outside the EU would not be ‘Guantanamo camps.’
The European politician also put forward ideas likely to meet the demands of Mrs Merkel’s ally, the CSU of interior minister Horst Seehofer, who has demanded the power to speed up the return of asylum-seekers arriving in Germany to the first EU country they arrived in under the Dublin Regulation.
The current regulation already allows administrative agreements between member states to manage and speed up returns from country to country, and Commissioner Avramopoulos explained that these options could be boosted.
A draft declaration for the meeting on 24 June talks about reserving access to social aid to the country where one is first registered in order to prevent any secondary movements of migrants.
On Wednesday afternoon, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte made it clear that Italy would not take all the migrants sent back to it from Germany. Italian media say that Matteo Salvini’s circles have even talked about sending all illegal migrants to northern EU countries.
This is not the time to accuse one another, said Dimitris Avramopoulos, calling for a European solution and for an answer to contain a genuine solidarity mechanism, the Commissioner referring here to the Dublin Regulation that is in the process of being revised and in which revision he still has faith.
As a nuance, the European Commission has postponed until the end of the year the deadline for European leaders to agree on the major aspects of reform of the asylum system, although the objective mentioned thus far was to reach agreement on 28 and 29 June.
Migration management crisis breaks out as numbers fall
The Commissioner put things in context on Thursday, pointing out that the numbers of migrants arriving in Europe has fallen in recent years by 97% for the Eastern Mediterranean route (Greece/Turkey) and 77% for the central Mediterranean (from Libya to Italy).
Dimitris Avramopoulos welcomed Italy’s efforts to manage its external borders, but Europe’s external borders still need to be consolidated and the Commission will soon unveil a new mandate for the European Border and Coastguard Agency, which is to turn into a genuine European border police agency with the aim of 10,000 agents on the ground by 2027.
The Commission also announced a new reform to turn the EASO into a true European asylum agency whose members could automatically travel to the EU's external borders to immediately identify people likely to obtain asylum. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)