On Friday 22 June, 16 member states announced that they would be participating in an informal preparatory mini-summit organised by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in an effort to examine the EU's response to the migration challenge (see EUROPE 12045).
The Benelux countries have joined the initial group of participants (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Spain, Greece and Malta). Denmark, Croatia, Finland, Slovenia and Sweden should also be added to these countries.
On Thursday, Italy confirmed that it would be participating. The President of the Italian Council, Giuseppe Conte, was convinced after a telephone call from the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and on the condition that no declaration is made by this preparatory meeting.
This is because a draft declaration circulating on Thursday highlighted the right of member states to more easily transfer asylum seekers to the first country of registration or to take sanctions against asylum seekers who do not remain in the country where they received asylum.
These elements are aimed at responding to the requests made by the Bavarian CSU’s Minister for the Interior, Horst Seehoher, which were greeted very badly in Italy.
Refusal from Visegrád countries. On Thursday night, the Visegrád group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) stated that it would not take part in the preparatory meeting on Sunday. In Budapest it formed a united front on migration policies.
Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian leader said that the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, “is responsible for organising the summits and not the European Commission”. The Hungarian leader's Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, said that the minisummit on Sunday is “unacceptable” because it aims to “heat up an old proposal that we have already rejected”. According to the work plan put forward by the Commission (see EUROPE 12046), on Sunday the member states will be invited to examine: external measures (e.g.: “regional landing platforms” for migrants); EU external border management measures (recruiting 10,000 agents to the new European Border and Coast Guard by the end of 2020), and; - internal measures, such as fast track transfers of asylum seekers from country to country to reduce so-called secondary movements.
The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (LIBE) submitted its contribution to the 28 heads of state meeting up on Thursday 28 June and Friday 29 June. The chairperson of the Parliamentary committee, Claude Moraes (S&D, United Kingdom) warned that “any initiative had to be efficient, decent and respect human rights”. He added that with the reform of the common European asylum system they already had an EU level solution and that the European Parliament would not participate in policies that did not work or went against human rights. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)