Last-gasp
push to save EU migration policy
As
others imitate Austria’s moves to limit migration, Brussels
insiders want to revive pan-European approach.
By JACOPO BARIGAZZI
2/24/16, 5:30 AM CET Updated 2/24/16, 7:29 AM CET
A group of senior EU
officials in Brussels is looking to save and give new impetus to a
flagging pan-European approach to migration.
The push from
Brussels comes as Austria and a handful of other EU states adopt
unilateral national solutions to stop the flow of refugees,
undermining the efforts by the European Commission — strongly
backed by Germany — to fashion and implement a common policy across
the 28 member nations to alleviate the crisis.
While EU interior
ministers meet Thursday in Brussels to improve the implementation of
an existing policy that’s widely considered a failure, leading EU
officials, including the presidents of the European Commission and
Parliament and leaders of the Parliament’s two main political
groups, who make up the so-called G5 group, will gather Monday to
discuss alternatives.
The proponents of a
common approach are seeking to prevent countries from retreating
behind reinstated borders and to step up pressure on them to honor
commitments made last year, including to relocate refugees that are
already in Greece and Italy to other countries in the EU and to keep
borders open for new asylum-seeker arrivals.
In an interview
Tuesday on POLITICO’s German-language In the Loop podcast, Manfred
Weber, chairman of the center-right European People’s Party group
in the European Parliament and member of the G5, said the EU needed
to strengthen its efforts on several fronts — from humanitarian aid
to border control.
“We need first an
approach to help people in need,” Weber said. “Then a
burden-sharing mechanism in the EU. We need to invest, thirdly, more
resources in the regions, need to step up development aid.”
He also said that
“if a country is unable to protect the external borders, [EU border
agency] Frontex has to have the right to do border checks and to
secure European external borders.”
Weber added: “We
have agreed with the presidency, the Netherlands, that we want to
conclude the legislative process [on the proposals already on the
table] by the end of the presidency, by the summer, that is.”
The G5 is an
informal group that meets regularly over dinner to coordinate policy.
It includes European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and
Vice President Frans Timmermans, European Parliament President Martin
Schulz, and leaders of the Parliament’s two main political groups,
Weber of the center-right European People’s Party and Gianni
Pittella of the center-left Socialist and Democrats.
In
two weeks’ time EU leaders are planning to gather again for a
summit with Turkey, which is seen as a crucial partner in the
strategy.
The form and
substance of the renewed push remains unclear but the move by top EU
political leaders suggests they could be gearing up for another
coordinated attempt to fix the failed policy. European leaders are
planning to gather again for a summit on March 6 with Turkey, which
is seen as a crucial partner in the strategy.
The EU’s migration
strategy, already in disarray as thousands of refugees continued to
arrive and several European countries began to erect frontier fences,
suffered a new blow at last week’s European Council summit when
Austria introduced a cap on asylum applications, saying it will only
process 80 a day and allow no more than 3,200 migrants to transit the
country a day.
That provoked a
harsh reaction from EU leaders and officials, who feared that
Vienna’s decision would encourage other countries to take
unilateral decisions to cope with the refugee influx.
That has turned out
to be the case in the days since the summit, provoking a tersely
worded statement Tuesday from EU migration commissioner Dimitris
Avramopoulos and Dutch migration minister Klaas Dijkhoff calling for
a “European approach” to the problem.
Greece in the cold
The Commission was
already upset that Austria did not inform it of the decision to
impose a cap, according to an EU official. It was further angered
when Austria decided to organize a meeting Wednesday in Vienna of
countries on the Western Balkan route, but invited neither the
Commission nor Greece, triggering a fierce reaction from Athens.
French President
Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras meet on the second day of the European Summit
The Austrian
ambassador to Greece was summoned on Tuesday to the foreign ministry
to receive a complaint, according to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini.
And a Commission spokeswoman said “we are concerned that some
member states are acting outside the agreed framework.”
Earlier this week,
Slovenia, a Schengen country, said it will beef up controls on its
border with Croatia. Further to the south, Serbia and Macedonia were
both looking at curbing the flow of refugees from Greece, essentially
moving to close that border entirely, which would leave hundreds of
migrants stranded on the Greek side.
On Tuesday, the
Belgian government notified the European Union of the temporary
suspension of the Schengen agreement on free movement, deploying up
to 290 police officer to the French border to prevent migrants from
the Calais camp known as the “Jungle” from crossing into Belgium.
The move came as
France awaits a court ruling that could order French authorities to
break up camps and settlements of migrants near Calais.
“This
might include the possibility of using violence against refugees” —
Alexandra Stiglmayer, European Stability Initiative.
Belgium is the
seventh country to request the temporary suspension of Schengen rules
over the past few months. The others include Austria, Denmark,
France, Germany, Sweden and Norway, which is a member of Schengen but
not the EU.
The Austrian
decision and the bottlenecks it has triggered all along the migration
route highlights what increasingly seems to be the fate of Greece: to
become a huge refugee camp.
“This is the worst
possible strategy because it leaves Greece out in the cold and
because it’s very difficult to implement it,” argued Alexandra
Stiglmayer, senior policy analyst at the European Stability
Initiative, a think tank. “Fences are not enough,” she warned.
Police would also be needed, “and this might include the
possibility of using violence against refugees.”
The prospect of
Greece being both the beginning and the end of the line for refugees
trying to get to northern Europe is one of the reasons why at the
last summit, EU leaders welcomed the Commission’s intention to
“make concrete proposals as soon as possible” to provide
humanitarian assistance “to support countries facing large numbers
of refugees and migrants.”
Almost 50 EU
officials are working in Greece to figure out how to provide help.
Meanwhile the
refugees continue to arrive in huge numbers. Greece alone has
received some 102,547 arrivals since the beginning of the year, the
International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.
By comparison, in
2015, it took until June for arrivals to surpass 100,000, the
organization said.
Florian Eder
contributed to this article.
Austrian
leader says Germany will copy its refugee policy
By CYNTHIA KROET
2/17/16, 3:23 PM CET Updated 2/17/16, 3:45 PM CET
Germany
will soon be forced to follow Austria’s lead and crack down on
migration, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said Tuesday.
In an interview with
the newspaper Kurier, Faymann said that governments “must take
decisions based on reality” and “be able to justify decisions in
their own country.”
“That is what we
did and I think that is a step that Germany will also take. I
personally believe that we will be in harmony again soon,” he said.
On Tuesday the
Austrian government announced that it will tighten border controls at
crossings in the south of the country, along the frontier with Italy,
Slovenia and Hungary, to slow down the influx of migrants.
Faymann also said he
wants Turkey to take tougher action against people smugglers.
Migrants line up at
a transit area between Slovenia and Austria
“That will be a
clear signal that it’s no use getting on a boat, because you will
be sent back anyway.”
In January, the
Austrian government agreed on to cap the number of migrants allowed
to enter the country in the next four years as a way of managing the
influx.
Austria will accept
37,500 asylum claims in 2016, and a total of 127,500 through 2019. In
2015, the country received 90,000 asylum applications.
Authors:
Cynthia Kroet
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