Not without a few difficulties along the way, the Twenty-Eight managed to agree on areas of work for common solutions to the political deadlock over the management of the migration phenomenon, after ten hours of discussions overnight from Thursday 28 to Friday 29 June.
These solutions include a commitment of the member states to support Italy over landings of migrants exports.
“Italy is no longer alone!”, said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who said that “this European Council has given birth to a Europe of greater responsibility and solidarity”.
Under the compromise reached, certain member states of the European Union will be able to opt to set up additional closed centres on their soil, for the purposes of identifying individuals as they land and offer protection on their territory.
Italy would not be required to do so, as Rome has put up strong objections to this in recent days. Spain and Greece showed openness to the idea, but France has yet to state whether it is amenable, even though it was its idea in the first place.
These “controlled” centres, as the French call them, would be paid for by the EU and more experts would be dispatched there than to the ‘hotspots’ set in place in Italy and Greece in 2015 when migration flows to Europe were at their peak.
Ideally, these closed centres would make it possible to process asylum applications and verify candidates’ profiles quicker. Those who prove likely to be eligible for protection could then be transferred to other EU countries, but this would still be solely on a voluntary basis of member states.
“This is the best option”, i.e. that of the closest safe port, “rather than options that require another four or five days at sea”, a national source explained, referring to the Aquarius episode, when a ship by that name rescued migrants at sea whom Italy refused to allow to land in its ports.
The Visegrád countries were given assurances that they would be exempted and could contribute in another form.
To shore up the coalition government, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, needed to secure wording from her partners over the possibility of negotiating bilateral agreements to manage secondary movements of asylum seekers.
She scored a few triumphs: Greece and France said that they were open to inter-governmental agreements along these lines, for instance in order to take back people who had first registered on their territory quicker.
The European leaders also approved the idea of the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, of creating regional platforms for migrants from third countries to land. This concept will be explored with southern Mediterranean third countries in cooperation with the IMO and UNHCR.
However, the idea is not to everyone’s liking. Although Hungary supports it wholeheartedly, France had several reservations, hoping to ensure that international law would be fully respected.
In any event, the first day of the session was marked by the opposition role played by Italy, with Conte’s government having issued threats before the Prime Minister arrived to block the adoption of the entire summit conclusions, also on other agenda items such as trade and defence, if its requests were not given due consideration.
In addition to solidarity in the division of efforts, Rome called in particular for guarantees over the financing of the emergency Trust Fund for Africa. The Twenty-Eight agreed on launching the second tranche of funding of the Facility for Refugees in Turkey “and at the same time on transferring €500 million from the 11th European Development Fund reserve to the EU Trust Fund for Africa”.
To the satisfaction of the Visegrád countries, led by Hungary, the idea of requiring member states to participate in programmes for the relocation of asylum seekers now appears to have been shleved permanently. However, these countries will have to make a greater financial contribution towards making the EU’s external borders watertight.
By request of Italy, the European leaders still hope to reform the so-called ‘Dublin’ regulation on asylum, by striking a balance between responsibility and solidarity.
According to Emmanuel Macron, the reforms of the text under the ‘Asylum’ package, the ‘Dublin’ regulation and the ‘Asylum procedures’ regulation should conclude in the very near future. Several countries refused to set a new deadline for a consensus.
Reactions. Conte welcomed the fact that the summit conclusions uphold the principle that “all vessels entering Mediterranean waters must abide by all laws” and that NGOs “mustn’t interfere” with the work of the Libyan coastguards.
“It is extremely important for us to have platforms where we can work with UNHCR, in full respect of international law”, the German Chancellor commented. Merkel added that the Twenty-Eight hoped to reinforce the European border guard and coast guard corps “by 2020”. “We have agreed to deliver the second tranche to Turkey, as Turkey has done a lot for the refugees, and also to top up the Africa Trust Fund”, she added.
Merkel referred to the question of secondary movements. “We have noted the need to regulate and manage this better, because we have to stick to the rules; asylum seekers are not entitled to choose a state within the EU or Schengen. But equally, we need solidarity with the countries of arrival/hosting”, she observed, acknowledging that “there is a good deal of debate” on the latter point.
On the ‘Asylum’ package, the Chancellor expressed optimism: “we can continue with the work, even though there is still much to do to build bridges between the different view points”.
Macron said that working together and “European decision-making” had prevailed over national solutions. The French President welcomed a coherent approach with third countries and the ambition to go along with the proposals of UNHCR and IMO. On the internal plank, he said that the principle of solidarity with the countries of first entry had been laid down.
“It’s not the best agreement, but it’s an important one”, said the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez. “We have secured some very positive things for the country and, in particular, some very important things at European level”.
“It is a very good compromise. We have achieved what we set out to achieve. There are declarations on resettlement on a voluntary basis and on ‘Dublin’ on a consensual basis”, said the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
The text of the conclusions is available at: https://bit.ly/2KtJt6O. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and the editorial team)