Meeting informally in Zagreb at the invitation of the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council, the European Interior Ministers devoted part of their discussions on Friday 24 January to how to tackle the most pressing migration problems pending the Commission’s Pact on Immigration and Asylum announced for March.
There is no shortage of urgent problems: the management of migrants in the Greek islands, the effectiveness of mechanisms for the return of irregular migrants, and the return to normal functioning of the free movement of persons in the Schengen area. Ministers discussed the issue of migrant smuggling networks over lunch.
Although nothing concrete came out of the meeting, the ministers renewed their support for key principles such as cooperation with non-Member States, in particular Turkey, with whom “partnership” is still necessary, reported the Croatian Interior Minister, Davor Božinović.
The situation in Libya was also raised in the discussion, which was more broadly devoted to the strategic agenda for 2019-2024.
In response to information on the potential influx of new migrants, the Croatian minister said that the EU must therefore be “able to show that it can meet these challenges”.
Agreeing on the future of the asylum system and migration policy will be of “crucial importance”, he said, and this will require the return of “mutual trust” between Member States.
Before the press, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, recalled that she had begun a tour of capitals to prepare for the future Pact, with “15 countries” visited to date (see EUROPE 12381/4).
She described the discussions she had as “constructive” and said she was “convinced” that the Commission would be able to present a Pact that would be “accepted” by the Member States, if not “welcomed”. However, she did not provide any details on the Pact’s content.
The situation in Greece worries and divides Member States
The ministerial discussion confirmed that there is “momentum”, said one source who attended the discussions. She noted a real willingness on the part of the Member States to carry out this reform of the European asylum system and a shared recognition that the situation in Greece can no longer be allowed to continue.
According to the NGO Oxfam, 28,000 people arrived on the Greek islands between October and December 2019, and a total of 42,000 people are detained there. Moria, the camp in Lesbos where half of the 18,806 people present are children, has reached “unmanageable” levels of overcrowding, according to the NGO.
Countries such as Austria, through its new Interior Minister, Karl Nehammer, have again spoken out generally against the redistribution of migrants between Member States. Mr Nehammer also opposed, in the case of Greece, the transfer of these people to the mainland.
Other countries, however, have taken a different position.
The German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, has thus positioned himself in favour of a mechanism for allocating migrants among the Member States, provided that these people are genuinely in need of international protection.
Several countries, including Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, for example, have stressed the importance of checking the profiles of people arriving in the EU and of sound registration procedures, according to our previous source.
Switzerland, a European non-Member State associated with the Schengen area and the so-called Dublin rules on asylum, which took part in the discussions, asked the Commission to develop a real European action plan to deal with the situation on the Greek islands.
In Zagreb, Switzerland made one of the most concrete announcements by pledging to relieve Greece’s burden and to welcome unaccompanied minors to its territory. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)