Unless there is a huge surprise, it is unlikely that the 28 Member States will agree on Friday 14 December on endorsing five legislative texts from the asylum package that have been the subject of provisional agreements between the European Parliament and the Council (see EUROPE 12045), while postponing the two most difficult legislative proposals, the reform of the so-called Dublin Regulation and the asylum procedures Regulation.
This is the scenario envisaged by several diplomatic sources on Wednesday 12 December. However, these did not rule out the possibility that some national delegations and the European Commission might want to address this issue and convince their partners to change their minds about the texts (resettlement, qualifications, reception conditions, Eurodac, European Asylum Agency).
But "consensus still does not exist", particularly after the General Affairs Council of 11 December, which showed the same blockages and the same logic of a legislative package to be defended, explained one source, which hardly believes in a reversal of the situation.
The discussion on migration policy should be "short", according to another diplomatic source, and the conclusions "rather modest", according to another diplomat.
According to a draft of the European Council's conclusions dated 11 December, three paragraphs are devoted to the European response to the migration challenge. Member States welcome the fact that migrant arrivals have returned to pre-crisis levels. And on internal EU policies, they simply call for further progress on the asylum package, in line with the conclusions of previous European summits, which have reiterated in particular the need for consensus (see EUROPE 12051).
Negative signal to the European Parliament
On the other hand, the European Council should ask the co-legislators, and therefore also the European Parliament, to "conclude quickly" the work on the European Asylum Agency (ex-EASO) and the European Coast Guard and Border Guard Agency (formerly Frontex).
On the latter issue, the EU Council adopted a partial political agreement on 6 December (see EUROPE 12154), and Parliament will adopt its negotiating position in January.
But Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee sent a negative signal on Monday 10 December by validating the same position on the European Asylum Agency as that adopted in 2016, during a first legislative review (see EUROPE 11686).
According to a parliamentary source, MEPs supported the rapporteur Péter Niedermüller (S&D, Hungary) in his choice to reject the reform proposal submitted by the Commission in September (see EUROPE 12095). However, they were unable to confirm this negotiating mandate, which will therefore be submitted to a subsequent plenary session, according to the same source. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)