On Thursday 28 September in Brussels, the Member States’ Interior Ministers will be discussing the arrival of migrants in the EU, particularly from Tunisia, as part of a comprehensive exchange of views on the external dimension of migration.
But on the internal aspects of migration and the current state of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, there was still confusion late on Wednesday 27 September as to whether the European Ministers would be able to reach a political agreement on the last outstanding text of the ‘Pact’, namely the Regulation on crisis management and situations of force majeure in the area of migration.
According to the German press, in particular the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz decided on Wednesday to lift the German block on this text, which would clear the way for an agreement to be reached this Thursday.
At the start of the day, some sources were still of the opinion that such a scenario was unlikely and would require a few more weeks of discussions. For others, however, the bilateral negotiations between Madrid and Berlin on the same day suggested that Berlin might come round to the text by the time of the Ministers’ meeting, with “a possible decision” the same day, according to one diplomat.
These bilateral negotiations were not intended to radically change the substance of the ‘Crisis’ text, the latest draft of which was presented to the Member States’ Ambassadors - unsuccessfully - on 26 July (see EUROPE 13220/5).
According to another diplomatic source, the aim was to make slight adjustments. They focused in part on the famous 75% recognition rate (the rate of positive recognition of an asylum application for a given nationality), below which it would be possible to apply the so-called border procedure in situations of crisis or instrumentalisation.
The text also gave Member States the choice of taking a decision on the basis of ‘merit’ for these people, who have received an average of up to 75% positive asylum decisions.
For Germany, this rate would be too high. Berlin is also said to be requesting new safeguards on the treatment of families with children.
For other delegations, it was important on Wednesday that these final negotiations did not change the overall balance of the text or undermine the provisions that had hitherto enabled delegations to support the text.
On 26 July, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia abstained. Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria also opposed the text.
With Germany on board, a qualified majority would be reached and the Presidency would no longer have to secure the support of the four countries opposed to the text.
According to one source, however, the unanimous agreement of the EU27 will be needed to change the agenda of the ‘Home Affairs’ Council, which on Wednesday was to include a simple review of the Pact. And unanimity may not be possible, making it difficult to hold a formal vote as early as this Thursday. In this scenario of a possible qualified majority, a new meeting of Ambassadors would have to be convened after the EU Council to validate this mandate.
In any event, European Ministers will be scrutinised by MEPs, who have decided to put the political trilogues on the ‘screening’ and ‘Eurodac’ Regulations on hold until this text is adopted (see EUROPE 13254/8).
As a reminder, the so-called ‘Crisis’ Regulation deals with emergency situations at external borders involving mass influxes of people, but also covers situations of force majeure such as pandemics or natural disasters, as well as instrumentalisation situations.
In these exceptional situations, the normal time limits for registering an asylum application would be extended, regular border entry points could be reduced for instrumentalisation cases, it would also be possible to have recourse to longer detention and not to provide the people affected by these situations with the same reception conditions (accommodation and even food, according to some sources) offered to asylum seekers in normal times.
The duration of the border procedure, which should not normally exceed 12 weeks, could be extended by a further 8 weeks, according to the latest text of 26 July. It should also be possible to detain people subject to this procedure for the same period.
Status of the EU-Tunisia agreement
In the morning, the Ministers will discuss concerns linked to the increase in the number of migrants arriving in the EU, and in particular the rising numbers, despite signing the agreement with Tunisia in July.
On this occasion, they will provide input into the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council’s plan to develop a new model to prevent illegal immigration (see EUROPE 13257/12) and will ask the Commission for very concrete information on the implementation of the agreement with Tunisia, for which the first payments have been made, as announced by the Commission last week (see EUROPE 13256/16).
Drugs and Ukraine on the agenda
The Ministers will also have lunch on the fight against organised crime and drug networks from Latin America with the Ministers of the Latin American Committee for Internal Security (CLASI). The aim of this committee is to focus efforts on the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking. A joint declaration will be adopted at the end of the lunch.
With regard to Ukraine, the European Ministers will approve the extension until March 2025 of the temporary protection granted since 2022 to more than 4 million Ukrainians in the EU. There will also be a discussion in the afternoon on internal security in connection with the war in Ukraine.
Bilateral ‘rifts’
If these subjects are not on the agenda, it is also possible that the Ministers will discuss certain bilateral issues on the margins, as Berlin has announced new Schengen controls at its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic, due to the influx of migrants.
Berlin and Rome are also in disagreement over the transfer of asylum seekers under the Dublin Regulation and Germany’s support for migrant rescue vessels at sea, which Rome is contesting. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)