From
protest to proposal: Eastern Europe tries new migration tactic
New
Commission proposal offers a nod to Hungary and other critics of EU
policy.
By JACOPO BARIGAZZI
6/6/16, 5:32 AM CET
The European
Commission is set to launch a new attempt to find EU consensus on
migration with proposals aimed at overcoming differences with Eastern
European countries such as Hungary.
The measures —
which are expected to be unveiled Tuesday by EU foreign policy chief
Federica Mogherini and First Vice President Frans Timmermans —
focus on financial help to the African countries that are the source
of migration to Europe.
But according to
officials they also include a political twist: an effort to
accommodate Eastern European concerns about stemming the flow of
refugees.
European Council
President Donald Tusk has spent months trying to find agreement
between the eastern and western EU countries. At a meeting last week
of center-right European leaders, Tusk portrayed the issue as a
difference of opinion between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán over how welcoming to be to
refugees.
“We will either
understand that the views of Angela and Viktor are compatible with
each other and only together can they provide a full answer, or
people will search for other radical and brutal recipes for how to
solve the crisis,” Tusk said.
epa05339627 Slovak
Prime Minister Robert Fico (L) is welcomed by European Council
President Donald Tusk prior to their meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 01
June 2016. Fico and Tusk's meeting focused on the Slovakian
presidency of the European Union, which will start on 01 July for six
months. EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET
Slovak Prime
Minister Robert Fico is welcomed by European Council President Donald
Tusk prior to their meeting in Brussels, Belgium, June 1, 2016 |
Olivier Hoslet/EPA
The Commission’s
new package, officials said, tries to find that common ground. It
builds upon a proposal made by Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
in April, the so-called Migration Compact, which also reflects ideas
the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic body, has
been working on for years about linking EU development aid to
cooperation in controlling migrant flows.
It also incorporates
ideas put forward more recently by Orbán, the EU leader most
strongly opposed to the Commission’s policies on migration —
especially when it comes to the relocation of refugees across Europe.
The Hungarian prime minister presented his vision of a migration
policy, which he termed “Schengen 2.0,” in April. At least six of
the 10 points in the plan match up with the Italian proposal.
According to an EU official, several of those ideas will be in the
Commission’s new package.
‘Schengen 2.0’
Both the Hungarian
and Italian plans push to link financial help to African countries
with stronger commitments to control their borders and agreements to
take back refugees. Both back the idea of setting up reception
centers outside the EU for the processing of asylum claims. Both are
also partly reliant upon the success of the EU’s deal with Turkey,
which has agreed to take back refugees and migrants in exchange for
money (and, in Ankara’s case, also in exchange for re-energized
accession talks).
“Asylum procedures
should be completed outside the EU in closed and protected hotspots
before the first entry on the territory of the EU,” states Orbán’s
plan. “Third countries should be supported in establishing a system
of reception and management of migratory flows … which should
foresee careful on-site screening of refugees and economic migrants,”
reads Renzi’s.
Publicly, the
Hungarians have had a harder time than the Italians in finding
support for their plan. Privately, Commission President Jean-Claude
Juncker has said he’s happy that Hungary has put forward its own
proposals, according to an EU diplomat. But Hungarians complain that
so far it has received little or no acknowledgment from the
Commission or Mogherini.
At a meeting of
foreign affairs ministers at the end of May, the Hungarian delegation
pushed to have the Schengen 2.0 proposal acknowledged in the final
document of the meeting, diplomats said — adding that Budapest had
refused to first sort out the matter at ambassadorial level.
Diplomats said
Mogherini negotiated a compromise and in the end the ministers
welcomed “the presentation of innovative proposals by all member
states, including the ‘migration compact’ proposed by Italy”
whereas it “will also continue to look into the proposal by Hungary
on ‘Schengen 2.0.'”
Eastern views
It remains to be
seen exactly how many of Hungary’s ideas will find their way into
the Commission’s new package. The movement by the Commission in
Budapest’s direction is likely to be more subtle than overt.
Diplomats and officials said the Italian and Hungarian proposals have
so many common points that it would be easy for the Commission to say
that it has a looked at both.
Mogherini will also
be under pressure to consider more than just Italy’s ideas.
According to an EU diplomat, if the proposal is too close to Renzi’s,
“it could be dangerous for her because she could be accused to have
a bias” for Italy, her country of origin.
Another factor is
the upcoming presidency of the EU by another Eastern European country
that has been a thorn in the Commission’s side on migration:
Slovakia. It will also be the first time the EU presidency will be
held by a country so openly critical of the bloc’s migration policy
since the crisis began in mid-2015.
The country’s
European affairs minister said last month that Slovakia would aim to
create a “sustainable” EU migration policy during its six-month
tenure in the presidency.
Still, major
differences remain between Hungary’s approach and that favored by
the Commission — and not only because Budapest is opposed to the
mandatory relocation of refugees. The Hungarian plan also does not
include any proposal to reform EU’s so-called Dublin system, which
requires that refugees be registered in their first country of
arrival — a policy that puts heavy pressure on frontline states
such as Italy and Greece.
The Italians have
been pushing hard to change the regulation, and the Commission in May
unveiled a set of proposals to reform it that include a possible
financial penalty for EU countries that don’t accept relocated
refugees. But Budapest’s proposal calls for “the reestablishment
of the proper functioning of the Dublin System,” while allowing
that “frontline member countries’ as well as Western Balkan
countries’ efforts to support the EU’s migration policy should be
assisted by the necessary financial and other needs.”
To try to bridge the
difference, Hungary’s state secretary for EU affairs, Szabolcs
Takács, met Thursday in Brussels with Marco Peronaci, a special
advisor to Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano.
Other Eastern
European countries are also weighing into the debate with proposals
of their own.
A Czech think-tank,
European Values, last week presented in the European Parliament
another reform of the migration system that was put together by
speaking to many officials in Eastern Europe but also to German and
Austrian officials.
“This is not
supposed to be an eastern proposal but it’s more based on
Europe-wide consultations,” says Radko Hokosky, executive director
of the Prague based think-tank.
Under the Czech
proposal the Dublin regulation would be unchanged but “people
admissible for international protection would only be those coming
from immediately neighboring the EU territory” as all the others
should apply in “safe countries of origin” or in “safe third
countries” outside the EU. In this way, he says, the number of
applicants would drop from one million to one hundred thousand.
The plan’s authors
have requested a meeting with the Commission and are waiting for an
answer.
Authors:
Jacopo Barigazzi
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