Se a intenção do Mini Summit, organisado por Juncker e a Comissão
em grande tensão com Tusk e o Conselho, além de “salvar” Merkel perante as
tensões políticas internas (Seehofer) e “ganhar tempo” o para o Summit a 28,
era a de confirmar uma união no processo de decisão de uma política conjunta da
UE nas migrações, então, este mini summit foi um falhanço e um fiasco.
Merkel anuncia agora a possibilidade de acordos bi-laterais
ou tri-laterais entre países da UE …
Será que a surpreendente e irresponsável proposta anunciada
por Costa de trazer 75.000 imigrantes já faz parte desta visão de acordos
bi-tri-laterais ?
OVOODOCORVO
'Operation Rescue Merkel'
By Mehreen Khan
June 25, 2018
Brussels Briefing / FT
Sunday's mini migration summit in Brussels was billed as the
day for EU leaders to come to the rescue of Angela Merkel. In the event it was
Italy’s prime minister who emerged claiming victory, having given the German
chancellor's listing ship a wide berth.
“I’m very satisfied,” Guiseppe Conte tweeted after a
four-hour meeting in the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters and his
first major appearance among fellow EU leaders.
The gathering of 16 leaders was Merkel's chance to win
political breathing space at home, where she is under pressure to police the
German border and reject asylum seekers who have already registered elsewhere.
Instead the conclusions were vague, divisions remained
exposed, and it was Conte’s populists who claimed to have shifted the agenda
ahead of a bigger summit showdown on Thursday. The FT has all the details.
The Italian law professor arrived with a 10-point plan
promising a “paradigm shift” including demands that would fundamentally rewrite
25-years of EU asylum policy. A showdown was avoided, but otherwise the results
were scarce.
In many ways, this is a political crisis rather than one
driven by weight of numbers. Migrant inflows are a fraction of those during the
peak year of 2015, down by 90 per cent on some measures. But it is the more
hardline voices seem to be winning the day three years on.
Three men who weren't in attendance - Hungary's premier Viktor
Orban, Horst Seehofer, Merkel's Bavarian coalition partner, and Italy's
far-right Matteo Salvini - still enjoyed a pervasive influence on the event.
"The Seehofer virus has affected the whole EU," Peter Müller writes
in Der Spiegel.
One of few things leaders agreed on Sunday was external
border policy, including the aim of building camps - or "processing
centres" for asylum seekers - outside the continent. Those with a long
memory will remember Orban demanding, back in 2016, that migrants be “rounded
up or shipped out to "islands" or somewhere in North Africa.
A Franco-Spanish plan to have "hotspots” inside the EU
is also gaining traction. The commission will come up with ideas on how to set
up the centres in line with international human rights principles in the coming
weeks. Italy is onboard.
On the most important issue for Merkel - namely dealing with
the secondary movements of migrants once they are in Europe - leaders failed to
grasp the nettle. Little wonder France and Germany are raising the idea of
coalitions of the willing to compensate for the lack of an EU-wide solution.
Conte's most revolutionary proposal was to scrap the first
country principle that has underpinned the EU's so-called "Dublin"
system and the borderless Schengen area for the last two decades. That is
likely to go absolutely nowhere. But it didn't stop the Italian talking up his
masterplan during a 30-minute intervention.
"All of us spoke our mind," said Joseph Muscat,
Maltese PM, whose government has clashed with Rome over rescuing refugee boats
in recent weeks. "I think it has served our purpose that we can understand
ourselves better next week."
Conte, for one, is looking forward to round two.
Merkel loses support, far right rises
after migration row: poll
Alternative for Germany
(AfD) party reaches new high in regular survey.
By SAIM SAEED 6/24/18, 5:46 PM CET Updated 6/25/18,
8:46 AM CET
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party reached
its highest level of support in a regular survey, while Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU alliance saw its numbers slump following an
internal dispute over migration.
The poll, conducted by Emnid for Bild am Sonntag, found that
16 percent of the 2,336 people surveyed supported the anti-migration AfD — 1
percentage point more than the previous week’s poll and the highest percentage
the pollster has recorded in favor of the party.
In contrast, the CDU/CSU fell by 2 percentage points to 31
percent, compared to the poll the week before. Disagreement over CSU leader
Horst Seehofer’s plans for tougher migration policies provoked a standoff
between the two parties that threatened to dissolve their long-standing
alliance and cause a government collapse.
Seehofer, who is also interior minister, on Monday agreed
with Merkel to postpone his plans until after the upcoming European Council
summit, in order to see whether the chancellor can reach an agreement with EU
leaders.
Tajani: EU faces ‘last chance’ to
tackle migration crisis
Divisions over asylum
policy threatens ‘European dream,’ says European Parliament president.
By GABRIELA GALINDO 6/25/18, 12:43 PM CET Updated 6/25/18,
12:47 PM CET https://www.politico.eu/article/tajani-migration-eu-faces-last-chance-to-tackle-crisis/
Europe is running out of time to agree on a “fairer and more
efficient” migration policy, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani
warned ahead of a summit of EU leaders this week.
“Our citizens are no longer willing to accept a defenseless
Europe,” Tajani wrote in a op-ed Die Welt published Monday, a day after an
emergency mini summit on migration failed to yield a breakthrough.
The EU needs to reform its migration policy to ensure it
grants asylum to “those fleeing persecution and war,” evenly distributes asylum
seekers across the bloc through an “automatic and compulsory” procedure, and
takes a hard stance “against those who have no right to enter or stay in
Europe,” the Parliament president wrote.
To persuade countries “unwilling” to get on board with a
redistribution policy, Tajani said any new strategy must go hand in hand with
plans to strengthen the bloc’s external borders and address the drivers of mass
migration from North Africa.
To do so, the EU should invest “at least €6 billion” to
close the Mediterranean route and increase cooperation with transit countries
such as Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, as well as Libya,
he wrote.
“In this way, only those who are entitled to protection
under the resettlement projects administered by the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees would come to Europe,” Tajani wrote. “These people would be safely
resettled and fairly distributed among EU host countries, as is already the case
in the camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.”
He also urged for the EU to make funding available for a
“Marshall plan for Africa” in its next budget, saying the bloc needs to invest
€500 billion over the next decade to tackle the root causes of migration and
help conclude readmission agreements with countries of origin.
The EU also needs to develop a short-term strategy that
curtails dangerous people-smuggling practices and ensures only those who are
“really entitled to protection” safely reach Europe, Tajani wrote.
“Without a credible
European strategy, everyone will continue to act on their own,” Tajani wrote,
warning that the “nationalization” of migration policies would spell “the end
of the Schengen Agreement” and “the European dream.”
On migration, EU leaders unite around plan to forego unity
Differences unresolved after mini summit, but talks will
continue at the European Council.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN AND JACOPO BARIGAZZI 6/24/18,
10:35 PM CET Updated 6/25/18, 8:46 AM CET
An emergency mini summit Sunday of EU leaders seeking a
common solution on migration yielded a breakthrough, of sorts: a general
agreement to stop seeking an overall, common solution.
It was not exactly a failure, with leaders hailing new
momentum in addressing the bloc’s most divisive political problem, and a
commitment to continue their discussion at a regular EU summit later this week.
But the talks did not deliver any immediate prize for
Germany’s Angela Merkel, who is under pressure at home, where her Bavarian
coalition partners are demanding tougher border enforcement policies.
“Wherever possible we want to find European solutions, where
this is not possible we want to bring those who are willing together and
develop a common framework for action,” the chancellor said as she left the
summit.
Other leaders were more blunt about the lack of any concrete
outcome.
Pedro Sanchez, attending his first major EU meeting, said
“everyone agreed on the need to have a European vision.”
“Today we didn’t take decisions,” Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras told reporters on his way out.
Still, that did not stop officials in the senior echelon of
the European Commission, which hosted the mini summit, from quickly summarizing
Sunday’s discussion into a potpourri of policy proposals and firing off an
e-mail message at 9:18 p.m, urging the European Council to rewrite its draft
conclusions on migration for the formal leaders’ summit later this week — the
latest salvo in a running institutional fight over how best to manage the
issue.
Merkel had arrived at European Commission headquarters
stressing the need for “bilateral or trilateral agreements,” in the absence of
a broader consensus among all 28 EU nations, which she plainly declared did not
yet exist.
But after roughly four hours of discussions, she didn’t
announce any new agreement like the deal she struck last week with President
Emmanuel Macron, who agreed to take back any asylum applicants registered in
France who cross illegally into Germany.
Merkel seemed intent on addressing Rome’s complaint that she
puts her domestic imperatives ahead of Italy’s struggle to deal with a flood of
migrants.
“We all agree that we have to stop illegal immigration and
that we have to secure our borders, and that we are all responsible for all
topics,” Merkel said as she left. “It can’t be that some countries only care
about primary migration, and others about secondary migration.”
Nonetheless, the diverging priorities of different EU
nations were on clear display at the meeting.
Tsipras, lending support to Italy as a fellow frontier country, urged
leaders to recognize that secondary movement — in which asylum seekers cross
internal EU borders after making their initial application — is not a concern
for Greece. “Our northern borders are unilaterally closed,” he said inside the
meeting, according to a Greek official.
‘European vision’
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who arrived declaring
he would deliver a “completely new proposal,” left without addressing the
press. Other leaders said his proposal, which focused on easing the burden of
frontier countries, was well-received but would require more study.
“The prime minister presented his plan in the meeting, and
there are many things that were included in the conversation, and others he
just shared with us his views, his opinion,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro
Sánchez said. “And of course we just received that proposal and we are going to
study it.”
Sanchez, attending his first major EU meeting, said
“everyone agreed on the need to have a European vision.”
But if there was agreement on the need for a European
vision, there was also recognition that it was virtually impossible to achieve
unanimity, particularly among Central European nations like Hungary and Poland
that adamantly refuse to accept refugees as part of an EU relocation system.
EU leaders have been struggling for the better part of three
years to resolve seriously divisive disagreements over refugee and migration
policy.
The EU mini summit was called at the behest of Merkel, who
faces an acute crisis at home over tough new border control policies being
pushed by Horst Seehofer, her interior minister and the leader of her coalition
partner, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
Merkel bought herself time in the crisis by convincing
Seehofer to wait until after the European Council this week so she could pursue
a broader, European solution. But her plan for a mini summit caused yet another
brouhaha because the Commission initially put forward a draft leaders’
statement that infuriated Italy, and prompted Conte to threaten to boycott the
gathering. At Merkel’s urging, the draft text was dropped, and Conte agreed to
attend.
Partnerships of the willing
After Sunday’s meeting there appeared to be consensus, at
least among most of the 16 leaders who attended, that the challenges would be
better tackled with partnerships among willing nations, rather than waiting for
unanimity among all 28. That suggested a watershed realization: At times the
best way to preserve EU unity may be to forego seeking EU unity.
“Smugglers and refugees cannot choose in which of the
European member states they turn in their asylum applications” — German
Chancellor Angela Merkel
One senior official who attended Sunday’s meeting said
Merkel’s position was remarkably altered from 2015, when she pushed hard for an
all-EU solution to the migration crisis.
“This time Merkel was not in the position of coming here
with an European solution because she had first to settle the situation at
home,” the official said. “It’s something that leaders start to feel.”
Instead, Merkel stressed the need to strengthen partnerships
with countries outside the EU, citing the EU agreement with Turkey, which she
characterized as a success.
“We want to develop further agreements with countries of
origin,” Merkel said. “Member states will divide up the work; some will do the
work for all of Europe.” She also called for greater control of external and
internal EU borders.
“Smugglers and refugees cannot choose in which of the
European member states they turn in their asylum applications,” she said.
But it was Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz who summed up
Sunday’s mini summit best. “The issue,” he said, “is still not solved.”
Vassili Golod and Andrew Gray contributed reporting.
Commission pushes Council to revise
migration plan
Brussels institutional rivalry colors debate ahead of EU summit.
By FLORIAN
EDER AND DAVID M. HERSZENHORN 6/25/18,
4:38 AM CET Updated 6/25/18, 10:40 AM CET
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with Spanish Prime
Minister Pedro Sanchez alongside Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borissov
during a summit on migration issues at EU headquarters in Brussels on June 24 |
Yves Herman/AFP via Getty Images
If at first you don’t crush your institutional rival, try,
try again.
EU leaders exited a mini summit on migration on Sunday
without issuing any formal joint statement. Instead, they emboldened the
European Commission to make another power play.
Commission officials quickly summarized the mini summit into
a proposal to amend the Council’s draft conclusions for the regular EU leaders’
summit to be held later this week.
An e-mail with the Commission’s new, proposed wording was
fired across the Rue de la Loi shortly after 9 p.m. It will likely be received
as intended — as a stink bomb that despite its odious (to the Council) origins
also includes a serious set of policy proposals, which cannot be entirely ignored
or discarded.
Commission Secretary-General Martin Selmayr, acting on
behalf of President Jean-Claude Juncker, stirred controversy last week by
proposing a draft leaders’ statement for the mini summit that was clearly
intended for the same purpose: to supplant the draft conclusions on migration
issued to national capitals just a day earlier by Council President Donald
Tusk.
16 leaders attended the mini summit (Tusk wasn’t among them)
and found a “plate in which everyone should find something to his taste.”
The move infuriated the Italian government, which was
angered at the content of the text, as well as Council officials, who were
annoyed by the substance of the statement but also the incursion onto their
turf. The Commission text was torpedoed at the behest of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel after Italian Prime Minster Giuseppe Conte threatened to boycott
the mini summit.
But not for long.
The Commission’s summary largely revived the statement,
proving that Selmayr, who has a running if unspoken rivalry with Tusk’s chief
of staff, Piotr Serafin, is not a man who accepts defeat easily — if at all.
The Commission stepped in to host the mini summit after Tusk
declined to do so, citing his unwillingness to preside over any gathering that
does not include all 28 EU leaders. But with Merkel under pressure at home from
her Bavarian coalition partners and eager to shift the conversation to Brussels
from Berlin, Juncker saved her day.
The Commission also proposed an array of steps directed at
so-called secondary movements — migrants who register in one EU country, but
then end up crossing into another.
In the end, 16 leaders attended the mini summit (Tusk wasn’t
among them). There, they found a “plate in which everyone should find something
to his taste,” Juncker said, according to one participant. And it was that
plateful of migration policy bounty that the Commission summarized in its
proposal to the Council.
Among the tasty morsels: a pledge of an additional €500
million for the EU’s Africa Trust Fund, money for the next tranche in the
€3-billion facility for refugees in Turkey, and a plan for “reception,” or
“welcome,” or “disembarkation” centers outside the EU for processing migrants
who are rescued or intercepted at sea.
According to the summary, which was seen by POLITICO,
leaders would support “the development of regional disembarkation possibilities
in line with international law and in close cooperation with UNHCR [United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] and IOM [International Organization for
Migration].”
Also included in the Commission proposal was a plan to
strengthen EU border patrol operations, with 10,000 additional guards deployed
by 2020.
The Commission suggested the following language: “The
European Council welcomes the Commission’s intention to swiftly propose a
further strengthening of the European Border and Coast Guard, enabling it to
deploy 10,000 border guards by 2020, strengthening its powers in the field of
return and enabling it to fully operate in partner countries outside the EU.”
Nothing like proposing a statement in support of your own
policy initiative.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with Italian Prime
Minister Giuseppe Conte | Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AFP via Getty Images
And, in an added bit of grandstanding, the Commission also
proposed setting an ambitious target for increasing the numbers of returned
illegal migrants: “The European Council calls on the member states to take
immediate action to achieve an EU return rate of at least 70 percent by the end
of 2019.”
The target comes with an explanation: “More also needs to be
done to ensure a reinforced, more coherent and effective common European return
policy. The European Council therefore welcomes the intention of the Commission
to swiftly make a legislative proposal to this effect.”
The Commission also proposed an array of steps directed at
so-called secondary movements — migrants who register in one EU country, but
then end up crossing into another.
These include a revision of the “Reception Conditions
Directive,” making it possible for countries to deny housing and money for
asylum seekers they’re technically not responsible for, and to impose residency
restrictions by ordering migrants to live in a specific place. In addition, an
asylum qualifications regulation would allow sanctions on those who are found
in an EU country where they don’t have the right to stay — for example, by
restarting the clock on the five-year waiting period needed to get EU long-term
resident status. And a reinforced Eurodac fingerprint database would facilitate
returns at the border.
So far, the Council has had little success in building
consensus for the revision of the so-called Dublin Regulation on asylum
procedures.
All these pieces of legislation have been agreed in
trilogues with Parliament, but were put into the freezer by EU ambassadors last
week, POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook reported.
The Commission’s proposal also urges that the conclusions
state that the “European Council calls for the adoption by the end of July of
five of the seven proposals to reform the Common European Asylum System which
are already close to conclusion” and for “adoption of the remaining two
proposals by the end of the year.”
So far, the Council has had little success in building
consensus for the revision of the so-called Dublin Regulation on asylum
procedures, and in that sense the Commission proposal may be inviting the
Council to set itself up for failure.
The Council seems unlikely to take the bait. A Council
official said, “At this stage, no substantial change is foreseen in terms of
our draft EUCO conclusions on migration.”
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker waits for
the arrival of EU leaders ahead of an informal EU summit on migration | Yves
Herman/AFP via Getty Images
The official focused primarily on the consensus among
leaders attending Sunday’s mini summit on strengthening the EU’s external
borders.
“It’s positive that the discussion at today’s mini summit
confirms that the main focus of our actions should be on protecting the
external borders,” the official said. “This reflects the emerging consensus,
which has been built step by step since September 2015. It’s for Europeans to
decide who enters European territory.”
As for the Commission’s continuing invasion of Council
territory, there was no further comment on what sort of tougher border
enforcement might be in development.
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