Insiders:
EU failing on migration
EU
to discuss shared border patrols, funds for Turkey at summit.
By VINCE CHADWICK
10/14/15, 8:38 PM CET
A poor European
response to an unprecedented influx of migrants is stirring an
extremist backlash, according to participants in POLITICO’s
Transatlantic Caucus, who urged EU leaders to take stronger,
long-term measures to address the crisis at this week’s summit in
Brussels.
The continuing tide
of new arrivals — 710,000 have been detected so far this year —
and a rise of anti-immigrant populism have overtaken Vladimir Putin
and the euro crisis as the biggest challenges for Europe since our
first caucus in June.
The vast majority of
the more than 100 diplomats, politicians and advisers who took part
in the third POLITICO Transatlantic Caucus assessed the EU’s
initial response to the crisis as mediocre, at best.
Just one person
rated the EU’s response — which has included €1 billion in
humanitarian aid, setting up “hot spots” to process migrants, and
a plan to relocate 160,000 refugees — as very good. Poor (44
percent) and average (32 percent) were how most of those surveyed
evaluated leaders’ efforts; 10 percent said the response had been
very poor.
Draft conclusions of
the summit starting Thursday, obtained by POLITICO, suggest EU
leaders will discuss shared border and coast-guard services as well
as boosting aid to Turkey, which hosts about 2 million refugees from
Syria and Iraq.
With Turkey
increasingly seen as the key to stemming the flow of people into
Europe, leaders are ready to support a joint action plan with Ankara,
which would include a substantial increase in “political and
financial engagement.”
“To deal with the
[migration] crisis effectively we have to solve the Syrian crisis”
— POLITICO Caucus participant.
The EU could also
boost the mandate of its Frontex border agency to enable it to return
migrants “on its own initiative,” according to the draft
conclusions, which build on proposals from interior ministers who met
in Luxembourg last week.
Participants in the
POLITICO Transatlantic Caucus included former World Bank President
and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, NATO Deputy
Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow, European Commission Vice
President Kristalina Georgieva, Italy’s Ambassador to the EU
Stefano Sannino, the EU foreign policy chief’s Head of Cabinet
Stefano Manservisi, and the president of the Chicago Council on
Global Affairs (and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO) Ivo Daalder.
Many caucus
participants believe Brussels is hamstrung by recalcitrant EU
capitals on the migration issue, with one writing that European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council
President Donald Tusk should “at the very least … have admitted
the need to adapt Schengen to the new challenge.” Some of the 26
European countries in the Schengen Area, which is free of internal
border controls, reintroduced them this summer as an emergency
measures to deal with the influx, undermining a pillar of European
integration. “[Juncker and Tusk’s] angelic silence on the issue
is a bonanza for populists of all kinds,” added a caucus
participant, who like all those taking part only agreed to be quoted
on an anonymous basis.
The Putin conundrum
EU leaders are under
pressure to switch from crisis-management to finding longer-term
solutions to cope with the highest number of displaced persons
globally since records began. “To deal with the crisis effectively
we have to solve the Syrian crisis,” said another caucus
participant. “Short of that, refugees will simply keep coming.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprise military intervention
in Syria this autumn has made him more of a player in that war. There
was no consensus among POLITICO’s group of policy insiders on how
to deal with Moscow: 13 percent favored doing nothing, 27 percent
backed further sanctions, 19 percent wanted a no-fly zone in Syria,
and others favored a combination of measures to keep up the pressure
while leaving room for dialogue.
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