EU migration plan flops on quota opposition
Terror attacks highlight the divisions on Jean-Claude Juncker's ambitious plan to force EU countries to accept quotas of refugees.
| EPA
By Jacopo Barigazzi
June 26, 2015 7:35 pm CET
Terror attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait on Friday underscored the challenge in convincing European states to accept outsiders within their borders and emboldened critics of Jean Claude-Juncker's push for mandatory national quotas.
One outcome of the EU leaders' summit was a confusing plan that claims to be "mandatory" to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers across the bloc while making the details per country "voluntary," highlighting the concessions the Commission president made from his original bid for set national quotas. Another 20,000 in need of international protection would be resettled.
Countries have been squabbling over how to control the flow of thousands of refugees trekking from North Africa and the Middle East to European shores, often with deadly consequences. But Friday's spate of deadly attacks risks making the migrant issue even more politically difficult.
A gruesome attack at a French factory that left one man beheaded was apparently carried out by two men flying the black flag of the Islamic State. In response, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for reinforcing Europe's security against terrorism.
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Germany and other countries have been focused on identifying their own nationals who have gone to the Middle East to fight on the side of Islamic radicals. Careful screening of asylum seekers is also essential to keep terrorists out, she said.
"We have to be careful that IS fighters don't slip into the EU," Merkel said as the summit wrapped up.
Far-right French leader Marine Le Pen was much more radical, insisting on closing the EU's open internal borders.
"The marches, the slogans and the emotional communication must give way to action," she said in a statement, that also called for suspected radical Islamists to be expelled from the country, mosques to be placed under surveillance and for more funding for security services.
Finding a home for refugees
Juncker seized on the refugee crisis to try to push through a mandatory reallocation of asylum seekers in order to shift the burden from recipient countries like Italy and Greece and from those who have already taken in large numbers of refugees like Germany and Sweden.
The idea was strongly opposed by Central European countries, most of which have little modern experience with large flows of migrants. European Council President Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, also opposed Juncker's plan.
Migrants should be "exported from rather than imported to" Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Hungary's premier, said before the summit. His country has threatened to build a 175-kilometer fence along the border with Serbia to keep out migrants fleeing across the Balkans to Hungary.
The debate continued Friday morning in the corridors of the Council.
"I would not call it a clash, it was a very frank discussion and that's politics," said an EU diplomat who witnessed the heated debate. "Juncker's job is acting as the guardian of the European treaties and that is what he did last night," he added.
A diplomat from Central Europe complained that "Juncker believes he is the president of Europe, which is simply not the case."
Another made the link with the terror attacks Friday: "It's not politically correct to say so but we need to discuss how to contain illegal immigration," a senior EU official said. "If you get more containment I am sure other countries will be more ready" to accept more legal migrants.
The outcome was a "mandatory" plan to relocate 40,000 refugees already inside the EU in Italy and Greece and the resettlement of a further 20,000 who have not yet made their way to Europe on a "voluntary" basis.
The draft conclusions of the Council call for a "temporary and exceptional relocation over two years" from Italy and Greece adding that all member states (except the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, which have the option to opt out) "will agree by consensus by the end of July on the distribution of such persons."
"In this way we make even clearer that no member state will get a phone call from Brussels imposing a quota of refugees upon them," argued a EU diplomat.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, one of the strongest supporters of the Commission proposal, said it was the best that could be done "otherwise the deal would have been written on the sand."
On the other side, Ewa Kopacz, Poland's prime minister, said: "There was a hard battle yesterday to keep this element of voluntarism."
Juncker tried to put the best face on a result that fell far short of his original proposal.
"I am rather satisfied by the outcome which — even though it is not perfect — has taken a good direction," Juncker said. "We have succeeded in determining the number of people who have been relocated."
Yet the problem remains: how do you get to a total of 60,000 if countries aren't forced to accept migrants?
"How do you get to that number? I'm struggling with the same question," said Elizabeth Collett, policy director with the Migration Policy Institute. "It is a big question mark."
Still, she said states resisting a full-on mandatory system with specific quotas per country would come under political pressure from countries more willing to accept asylum seekers.
But advocates said the deal was a cop-out.
"This is business as usual — what the EU and its member states have failed to do is show real leadership and compassion to the people in most need," said Iverna McGowan, acting director of Amnesty International.
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