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Central
bloc demands rights for EU migrants settled in UK
Visegrád
Group call for ban on benefits to apply to those who arrive after the
law comes into effect.
By TARA PALMERI
2/16/16, 12:05 AM CET Updated 2/16/16, 12:20 AM CET
EU citizens already
settled in the United Kingdom must be spared from David Cameron’s
planned restrictions on benefits, Central European leaders said
Monday evening.
At a summit in
Prague, the Visegrád Group — Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic
and Slovakia — coordinated their response to the British prime
minister’s demands for EU reforms which will be debated at a
February 18-19 European Council.
Their main concern
was ensuring that a ban on in-work benefits for EU migrants would
only apply to those who arrive after the law comes into effect.
They also want such
a provision to apply to child benefits being sent abroad, which the
British want to be index linked to the economic situation in the
country where the child lives.
“With in-work
benefits the text is clear,” Tomáš Prouza, the Czech Republic’s
state secretary for EU affairs and a key ally of Prime Minister
Bohuslav Sobotka, told POLITICO.
“We need the same
clarity for the child benefits indexation — same rules, only to the
newcomers.”
“It’s only fair
if you change the rules then it’s for those who decide to come
after.”
Defending rights
“Our fundamental
goal is the defense of rights obtained by people already on the
islands,” Konrad Szymański, Poland’s Europe minister, told
Polish radio Monday evening.
He said which
benefits would be suspended had still to be determined, as “not all
can and should be [suspended].”
Beata Szydło,
Poland’s prime minister, said after the summit that the migration
plan creates “difficult to accept” issues for the countries of
the region.
Early on Monday,
during a press conference with European Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker, Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Cioloş called
for the so-called safety mechanism on migration to be limited to
exceptional situations that last for only a short period of time.
He echoed the
Visegrád position on the indexation of child benefits, saying, “We
want this mechanism to only apply to those who will go to work in the
U.K. from now on.”
Primer minister of
Poland, Beata Szydło; PM of Hungary, Viktor Orbán; PM of the Czech
Republic, Bohuslav Sobotka; and PM of Slovakia, Robert Fico, prior to
the V4 summit
Polish Prime
Minister Beata Szydło (left) and her Hungarian counterpart Viktor
Orbán
To ensure that the
contentious reform can only be implemented by the U.K. and not by
other countries, a line was added last week to the reform text that
the safety mechanism would only be available to countries that opened
their labor market to EU migrants immediately after the accession of
the Central European countries in 2004. The only countries to do this
were the U.K., Sweden and Ireland.
The Visegrád
countries want the same rules to apply to child benefits.
“The whole
discussion which we always thought would be U.K. specific is now
being hijacked by some other countries that are talking about
re-modeling the whole social system,” Prouza said.
“The Germans,
Austrians and Benelux, they’re starting to say we should apply the
indexation of child benefits. The Luxembourgers and the Belgians have
talked about indexing unemployment benefits.”
A sherpa from a
Western EU country confirmed this concern, saying: “There’s a
tension between Eastern european states and the Western countries,
who are saying, ‘What about me? What if I want to use this
mechanism?'”
He also said that
they want to ensure the text is updated to clarify that the safety
mechanism only applies to “non-contributory benefits.”
“The ban would not
apply to sickness benefits because you pay into the system,” Prouza
said.
“We think if any
benefits are based on you paying into the system first, you should
get back the same amount that you pay in.”
Sobotka will meet
with Tusk in Prague on Tuesday morning where they will discuss their
demands, with the hopes that they will be included in the text by the
eve of the summit.
Cameron is hoping to
secure a deal this week so that a referendum can be held in June.
Jan Cienski
contributed to this article.
Authors:
Tara Palmeri
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Central
Europe wants to halt migration if EU plan fails
Visegrád
countries don’t want migrants, but they also don’t want to offend
Germany.
By JAN CIENSKI
2/15/16, 9:34 PM CET Updated 2/16/16, 7:26 AM CET
Central European
countries want a “back-up plan” to block the flow of migrants
from Greece in case other steps to fortify the EU’s borders fail,
but during a summit in Prague on Monday they didn’t break with a
broader EU approach to the issue.
The prime ministers
of the Visegrád Group — Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia — met with leaders from Macedonia and Bulgaria, a sign of
the region’s increasing concern that the EU has lost control of the
frontiers of the passport-free Schengen zone.
Their summit
statement expressed “full support for measures adopted at the
European Union level with the aim of a more effective protection of
the external borders.”
But the leaders also
called for “an alternative back-up plan” if efforts to keep
migrants from leaving Turkey fall short.
Central European
countries have generally balked at the EU’s refugee relocation
scheme, denouncing any attempt at imposing resettlement quotas.
Hungary is ready to
support the creation of “a second line of defense,” Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the conclusion of Monday’s
summit.
Hungary calls the
shots
Orbán has been the
driving force in crafting a tough regional response to the migration
crisis. Hungary last year saw hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers
passing through on their way to wealthier EU countries like Austria
and especially Germany. Orbán stemmed that flow by building fences
along Hungary’s borders, and migrants are now moving through
Slovenia.
Earlier Monday,
Orbán spoke in Hungary’s parliament, denouncing Europe’s “weak”
response to the crisis and insisting that building a border fence had
worked “to protect the country and fend off terrorist attacks.”
The
Czechs have the best relations with Germany of all four Visegrád
countries, and worked to make sure the summit declaration didn’t
alienate Berlin.
Central European
countries have generally balked at the EU’s refugee relocation
scheme, denouncing any attempt at imposing resettlement quotas.
Opinion polls show very little support for accepting migrants across
the region.
However, the
Visegrád countries also want to ensure that Schengen does not
collapse, as the free movement of people and goods has been an
enormous boost to their economies.
Germany is taking
the lead in trying to save the zone and keep Greece from being
suspended by trying to get Turkey to slow the flood of people
crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece. It also wants Athens to set up
processing centers to identify and fingerprint migrants instead of
simply allowing them to continue on to northern Europe. EU countries
have given Greece three months to fix its borders.
But if that doesn’t
work, then the Visegrád countries want a way to halt the flow.
“If Turkey fails
to manage the regulation of migration, the illegal economic migration
may be stopped on the borders of Macedonia and Bulgaria,” Bohuslav
Sobotka, the Czech prime minister, told the CTK news agency.
Berlin isn’t
enthusiastic about that idea.
Mending fences,
building fences
“The atmosphere in
Europe is becoming poisonous,” Arndt Freytag, the German ambassador
to the Czech Republic, wrote in the Pravo newspaper. He worried about
“xenophobia” and that “eastern and western Europeans are
diverging” over the issue.
The Czechs have the
best relations with Germany of all four Visegrád countries, and
worked to make sure the summit declaration didn’t alienate Berlin,
said Milan Nič, head of the Central European Policy Institute, a
Bratislava-based think tank.
“The Czechs are
trying hard to mend fences with Germany,” he said.
But fences are
broadly what the region wants.
The
Bulgarian prime minister, warned that strengthening Greece’s
borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria would simply shift migrant flows
elsewhere.
In addition to
Orbán, who has seen his popularity surge thanks to his opposition to
migrants, Slovakia’s Robert Fico is also using the issue to boost
his chances ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections.
The politics aren’t
as clear-cut for Beata Szydło, Poland’s prime minister. Warsaw’s
relations with Berlin have turned frosty in recent weeks, as Poland’s
new nationalist Law and Justice party government has resurrected
historic Polish fears of being dominated by Germany.
Jarosław Kaczyński,
the leader of the Law and Justice party, has warned of
parasite-carrying migrants, and there is little public enthusiasm in
Poland for accepting large numbers of foreigners, but Szydło’s
government hasn’t made as much political hay of the issue as Orbán
and Fico.
Macedonia and
Bulgaria’s presence at the Prague summit is part of the region’s
effort to send a signal to the rest of the EU that it wants to block
Greece’s northern border if Athens proves unable to act. Macedonia,
which isn’t an EU member, in recent days has received offers of
help to expand its border fence with Greece.
Bulgaria has been a
little more careful. Boyko Borisov, the Bulgarian prime minister,
warned that strengthening Greece’s borders with Macedonia and
Bulgaria would simply shift migrant flows elsewhere.
On Sunday he spoke
with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Bulgaria confirms its
solidarity with Greece and its disagreement with the idea to close
the border between Macedonia and Greece,” said a Bulgarian
government media statement on the phone conversation.
Authors:
Jan Cienski
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