“Nobody
will dictate to us what to do — Robert Fico”
The
EU ‘nuclear’ option on migration
Diplomats
debate what to do if no consensus can be found on plan to relocate
asylum-seekers.
By JACOPO BARIGAZZI
9/17/15, 12:03 PM CET Updated 9/17/15, 12:05 PM CET
EU officials trying
to broker an agreement on a new relocation plan for asylum-seekers
are hoping to avoid turning to a last-ditch, “nuclear” option: a
qualified majority vote that would force through a decision over the
objection of countries opposed to it.
But as the crisis
continues to escalate, with tensions flaring in Hungary and
elsewhere, there is a growing possibility that a decision-making
option normally used for less controversial issues could come into
play on this one.
It’s known by one
of the acronyms frequently heard in Brussels policy-wonk
conversations: QMV, for qualified majority voting. It is a principle
introduced to avoid the need to find a unanimous consensus on every
issue and means that a decision can instead be taken if two
conditions are met: when 55 percent of EU member states vote in favor
of a measure, and when it is supported by member states representing
at least 65 percent of the total EU population.
The prospect of
using QMV to impose a plan for the relocation of a further 120,000
refugees, as proposed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in
his State of the Union speech, has emerged after EU countries failed
Monday to reach a consensus on it.
EU Migration
Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, at the end of that meeting,
stressed that “a majority of the member states are ready to move
forward, but not all.”
With that majority,
the Council could push forward the new plan using QMV. But doing so
on such a contentious issue would be politically risky.
“As far as I can
recall it has never been used on delicate issues like migration,”
said a senior EU diplomat.
The Way Forward
By Thursday morning,
little was clear about how the EU will reach a decision on a crisis
that shows signs of only getting worse. Leaders were still up in the
air about whether a final decision could be made at ministerial level
or whether another summit would be needed.
“If there is an
extraordinary European Council, it will be to discuss migration at a
higher level, the Dublin or the Schengen agreements for example, and
not to talk about legislation. It is the Council of interior
ministers where decisions over relocation can be taken,” an EU
diplomat said.
The president of the
Council, Donald Tusk, is expected to announce Thursday whether there
will be another emergency EU summit on migration. Another special
meeting of interior ministers has already been set for next Tuesday.
But reluctant
countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, are not softening their line.
Slovakia, one of the strongest opponents of the relocation plans put
forward by the Commission, will resist implementing EU decisions to
impose mandatory quotas of asylum seekers on member states, Prime
Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday. He told parliament that
Slovakia would not accept any decision made by a qualified majority.
Nobody will dictate
to us what to do — Robert Fico
“Nobody will
dictate to us what to do,” Fico said.
There are other
sticking points, such as on “hotspots,” which are designed by the
Commission to quickly detect migrants in frontline states who are in
need of protection and enact return policies for those who are not.
Nuclear fallout
Even if qualified
majority voting could offer a way out of the standoff, it would be
politically risky and even damaging to European unity for a number of
reasons, EU sources say.
First of all, Europe
works by consensus, trying to find the larger possible majority on
every issue — and with qualify majority some countries get
cornered.
Secondly, diplomats
worry there would also be implications for the very people they are
trying to help: the refugees. “We are talking about human beings.
Is it easy to imagine how refugees would be welcomed by the local
population in a state that openly opposes their arrival?” said one
EU official.
‘We cannot abandon
our principles’
Germany is ready to
consider the QMV option if needed, an EU diplomat said, pointing out
that Berlin is very much aware of the problematic consequences it
could entail.
Among countries
opposing this new relocation scheme, mainly in Eastern Europe, there
is a mixture of anger and defiance about the possible use of a
qualified majority.
It would be “very
dangerous” to use it, said a Hungarian diplomat. “Legally, it
would be feasible but it would be a political and institutional
problem.”
Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orbán, in an interview with Die Welt, said a
decision from Europe to impose quotas over some countries’
objection would not be a wise decision, but “it will be the law and
we will have to accept it.”
The Slovak interior
minister, Robert Kalinak, said his country was not afraid of being
outnumbered on the issue. “There is the real possibility of the use
of a qualified majority, but just because of this threat we cannot
abandon our principles,” he told journalists after Monday’s
failed ministerial meeting.
EU Justice and Home
Affairs Council meeting
Slovak Interior
Minister Robert Kalinak (C) and Austrian Interior Minister Johanna
Mikl-Leitner (R) talk at a special European Justice and Home Affairs
Council meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 14 September 2015. EPA
Others made clear
that they are doing their best to avoid this option.
In a meeting with
the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Czech Foreign
Minister Lubomír Zaorálek stressed the need for a common solution
and to avoid the use of qualified majority, said an Eastern European
diplomat. A Polish diplomatic source also stressed that steamrolling
reluctant countries would be counter-productive. “Qualified
majority vote is not the way forward,” the source said.
If Tusk does call a
European summit, it might be the best way to avoid using the nuclear
option, EU officials said.
The chicken-egg
question
EU officials must
also come to grips with the hotspots issue, particularly
foot-dragging by Italy, which would host five of them. Greece is only
set to have one.
“In the next
months the first relocations of asylum-seekers will start from Italy
towards Europe and only then the hotspots will be launched,”
Italy’s Interior minister Angelino Alfano was reported as saying in
Italian media on Wednesday.
Yet Monday’s
interior ministers council put a great emphasis on the quick set up
of hotspots as a pre-condition of relocation, according to Jean
Asselborn, the interior minister of Luxembourg and chairman of the
Council. The council’s conclusions say “the Commission will
report on the effective implementation of the hotspots by the end of
next week” and that ministers “have requested further, decisive
progress” on this front.
“It is the
chicken-egg dilemma,” said an EU official. Should the hotspots
first be implemented and only afterwards relocation can start, like
many EU countries are saying? Or should it be the other way around,
as Italy suggests?
Part of the problem
is confusion over the term “hotspots,” officials said. If it
means registration centers where migrants get a scanning,
fingerprinting and identification, they are already in place and EU
teams are already working with local authorities. If it means
reception centers where refugees and migrants are kept while their
applications are examined or while they wait to be returned to their
countries, which was what many EU leaders are referring to, then this
is not the case yet.
“We are
identifying refugees, that is something that we are already doing,”
Mario Morcone, the head of the migration department at the Italian
Interior Ministry, told POLITICO. “But if by hotspot we mean a
place where we keep people locked in, then we will do it only when
the Italian government will tell us to do it.”
Hans Von Der
Burchard contributed to this article.
Authors:
Jacopo Barigazzi
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