The European leaders are due to hold a relatively brief and uncontroversial exchange on the European Union’s migration policy on Thursday 19 December in Brussels.
While they discussed the issue for long hours at the European summit in October, the stakes surrounding the set of conclusions appear to be lower this time round.
Several countries, such as Poland, believe that they were already successful two months ago. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, had in fact obtained from his partners an acknowledgement of the difficulties of managing his country’s border with Belarus and a green light to take emergency measures to remedy the instrumentalisation of migration by Moscow and Minsk (see EUROPE 13506/1).
Since then, the European Commission has published a communication on the subject (see EUROPE 13543/1) and its President has drawn up an inventory of current projects (see EUROPE 13547/13).
According to the latest draft conclusions of the European Council, dated Wednesday 18 December, the EU27 will take note of “progress in the implementation” and wish to pay “particular attention to important ongoing work on: the external dimension; the implementation of adopted EU legislation and the application of existing legislation; the prevention and countering of irregular migration, – including through new ways in line with EU and international law; urgent efforts to facilitate, increase and accelerate returns; safe countries of origin; the fight against instrumentalisation, human trafficking and smuggling; as well as safe and legal pathways in line with national competences”.
Returns. The European Council will also welcome the Commission’s intention to present a legislative proposal on the return of illegal migrants in early 2025. It will also take note of the Commission’s communication on the ‘weaponisation of migration’.
“This is the first time that the Commission and the EU have recognised the problem, the fact that migration is being used as a weapon, and that they have given us a broad enough tool to combat it”, a diplomatic source was pleased to say on Wednesday. The aim is not only to recognise “pure migratory pressure, but also that this is a hostile act linked to internal security”.
Furthermore, no substantive discussion is expected to take place on ‘return hubs’, even though work on this concept is continuing in the EU Council and many countries recognise the need to work on the feasibility of such a system.
On the new Returns Directive, “the trade preference system could be used to incentivise countries that refuse to return [their nationals] and safe countries that do not want to take back their migrants”, commented one diplomat. We “need a targeted and effective Directive”, said another European source, urging caution over the ‘innovative solutions’ promised by Mrs von der Leyen.
European leaders could also discuss the issue of Syrian refugees, at a time when several countries have suspended the processing of asylum applications in order to assess the new political and security situation in Syria (see EUROPE B13544A).
Informal meeting. Several countries will meet before the European summit on the subject of migration. Initiated by Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark, the meeting will bring together the Czech Republic, Sweden, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Malta, the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council and Mrs von der Leyen.
Link to the European Council’s draft conclusions of 17 December: https://aeur.eu/f/ev7