The European Commission will bring forward new measures in the second fortnight of September to seal the European Union’s external borders even more hermetically, in response to the European Council desire to place the emphasis on tackling illegal immigration in the Mediterranean Sea.
“It has been agreed that the European Commission will present a proposal in September to protect the external borders. There already was agreement that the European border and coast guards (Frontex) should have a complement of 10,000 officers by 2027. We are bringing the deadline forward to 2020 and in September I shall make proposals to that effect”, said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Vienna on Friday 6 July, following a working meeting with the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
According to a European official, this speeding up of the timescale gives effect to a “meeting of minds” among the member states. The proposal, to be unveiled after Juncker’s State of the Union speech at the European Parliament in mid-September, will also contain a beefing-up of the Frontex mandate. However, no measure is expected to be taken on at sea rescue operations by NGOs.
Juncker said that the Commission and the Austrian Presidency of the Council were pulling in the same direction, that of a Europe that protects, as the slogan adopted by Vienna says.
The Austrian authorities will work to take forward the conclusions of the last European summit (see EUROPE 12052).
Pleased to see the priority given to protection of the external borders, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz expressed the wish that “European solutions” will be found.
The previous day, the Austrian Christian Democrat said that a Europe with no internal borders was only possible through a tightening of external borders. On the reform of the asylum system, he questioned the effectiveness of the measures to relocate asylum seekers when often these people want to leave the host member state, thus causing secondary movement within the EU.
The Austrian Presidency hopes to organise an EU-Africa summit in the last quarter of 2018 in order to take forward the European agenda on: - tackling the root causes of migration; - speeding up the return of migrants who do not qualify for international protection; - setting up reception centres where migrants picked up in international waters will be brought ashore and identified to see if they have a right to asylum in the EU.
According to an Austrian document revealed by French daily Le Monde on Thursday, Vienna wants asylum requests to be submitted outside the EU in future. EU rules do not permit this.
“Once it was possible inside embassies of EU countries outside Europe”, it was, however, pointed out by Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl in Vienna on Wednesday 4 July. In her view, “Austria is fulfilling its tasks” in terms of reception of refugees, with an asylum approval rate of over 85%.
Juncker rejected the term “fortress Europe”, pointing out that the European Union had granted twice the number of asylum requests as the United States and Australia combined.
Of the other issues on the Austrian Presidency agenda, Kurz reiterated the importance his country attaches to progress in integrating the Western Balkan countries into Europe. He also argued for the completion of the digital internal market through the adoption of 29 legislative proposals before the end of the current legislature. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)