The EU reaches an agreement on the refugee distribution mechanism in the event of a migration crisis | International

The Council of Ministers of the Interior of the EU has reached this Friday in Luxembourg a political agreement on the compulsory solidarity mechanism for the distribution of refugees between European countries, one of the key pieces of the migration pact launched by the European Commission in September 2020 and that it had been stagnant for almost two years. In the coming days, Brussels will collect the offer of places from the countries willing to collaborate in future distributions in the event of a migratory crisis in one or several EU states. Once the norm is in force, still pending formal approval, the partners who do not wish to collaborate will have to make a financial contribution or financially help other partners to pay for the return of irregular migrants without the right to asylum.

Both Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior of France, who holds the presidency of the Council this semester, and the European Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, have hinted at their enormous satisfaction with a principle of agreement that they have described as “historic”. “It was an extremely successful meeting,” said Johansson, brimming with joy, at the post-match press conference. Darmanin celebrated the success of the presidency’s strategy “to unblock some very important jobs for the EU”.

The huge exodus of refugees that the invasion of Ukraine has unleashed, with more than six million people displaced to European countries, has helped to reinforce the Commission’s arguments in favor of approving the migration pact as soon as possible. In addition, countries traditionally opposed to a common asylum policy, such as Poland or Hungary, have been seen in the forefront of the Ukrainian crisis as recipients of the largest number of people fleeing the war.

The vice-president of the Commission for migratory affairs, Margaritis Schinas, believes that the milestone achieved by the Council in Luxembourg “is unequivocal proof of the united Europe that, in recent months, we have seen emerge even stronger”, alluding to the coordinated and forceful response to the aggressions of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

More than a dozen countries have already indicated their intention to participate in the platform for the relocation of asylum seekers that the Commission will launch, according to Darmanin. The Community Executive, as announced by Johansson, “will organize a meeting of the solidarity platform in the coming days to give concrete expression to this historic agreement”.

Apart from the pact on solidarity measures, the ministers have also reached an agreement in principle on two of the legislative projects related to the responsibility of the States in the management of irregular migration flows. One of them, according to the Commission, will establish for the first time a selection process prior to the entry of migrants, with the identification of all the people who cross the external borders without permission or who land on community territory after a rescue operation in the sea. The other is related to Eurodac, the European database in which the fingerprints of asylum seekers are registered.

“With this presidency, significant progress is being made,” said the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, upon arrival at the Council meeting. The Spanish representative anticipated the agreement and highlighted the value of “the political declaration on voluntary relocation, but with a character of solidarity; It is the first time that solidarity is spoken of politically.”

The pact, made up of nine legislative projects, had not been able to advance in two years of processing due to the lack of agreement on the chapter on solidarity in the event of a migration crisis. The negotiations started already poisoned by the deep mistrust that the 2015 migration crisis left between the member states. The Commission, then chaired by Jean-Claude Juncker, attempted to impose distribution quotas military manual, with penalties of up to 250,000 for each refugee that a country refused to accept. Poland and Hungary rebelled and refused to accept a rule that was never effectively applied.

The Community Executive changed course after Juncker was replaced by Ursula von der Leyen. Brussels then proposed compulsory solidarity, but à la carte, in which each country could choose between several forms of cooperation beyond the resettlement of refugees. Even so, the new pact also ran aground due to the discrepancies and interests of the countries based on their geographical position and the possible repercussion of a migration crisis.

The successive six-monthly presidencies of the Council were unable to come up with a formula that would fit the countries on the frontier line and those of the interior; those that deal with irregular entries, as is the case with Spain, and those that face salvage on the high seas, such as Italy; and those who are willing to accept refugees from other countries, such as Germany, with those who absolutely refuse, such as Poland or Hungary.

But France chose to break the pact and seek separate agreements on the different proposals. And the formula seems to have scored a first goal with the commitments achieved this Friday in Luxembourg. The proposals have not been put to a formal vote, but the French presidency has confirmed a large majority in favour. And Commissioner Johansson has recalled that the legislative projects on the table can be approved by a qualified majority in the Council, which avoids the risk of a veto by capitals such as Warsaw or Budapest.

Darmarin has recognized, however, that the agreements reached are only “a first stage of the pact” and that there is still a long way to go to fit all the pieces of one of the most complicated puzzles in the history of the Union. The Commission, among other things, will have to continue the development of the so-called external dimension of the agreement, aimed at obtaining the cooperation of the countries of origin and transit of irregular migrants to stop human trafficking or to accept the return of applicants. rejected asylum seekers.

The objective is to have a legal structure that allows dealing with migration crises like the one in 2015, when more than a million Syrians arrived in the EU in a matter of weeks. Then, a resettlement decision was adopted in which 25 EU partners participated and allowed the transfer of 21,999 migrants from Greece and 12,713 from Italy, according to Commission data. Brussels acknowledges that the figures were far below what was desired, among other things, because the Member States were unable to identify potential candidates for resettlement and because that possibility was only open to people from countries with a recognition rate of asylum request higher than 75%.

Starting in 2018, relocation operations were also launched for people arriving in Italy and Malta after being rescued at sea. But the figures were also low with some 2,000 people transferred until the end of 2020. In 2019, Greece asked for help to transfer 2,500 unaccompanied minors to other countries, but the request went unheeded for months until a dozen partners were willing. to accommodate a total of 1,600 minors. The Commission concluded that the definitive solution passed through a stable, predictable and permanent structure of solidarity that this Friday seems to have begun to become a reality.

Follow all the international information in Facebook Y Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.