It has been three weeks since EU countries finally managed, after many years of disagreement, to agree on their view on a new common asylum and migration policy.
A victory for Italy, believes the country’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Italian Brotherhood party, on her way to an EU summit on Thursday in Brussels.
Asylum and immigration settlement depends to a large extent on strengthening borders with stricter controls and expanded cooperation with countries outside Europe. This also includes the requirement of “solidarity”, in which countries help each other with personnel, redistribution or clean money, to relieve pressure when there is too much pressure.
“No to fines”
Countries that are very critical of immigration, such as Poland and Hungary, still oppose it and want to take the entire settlement to an EU court.
According to the news site Politico Europe, among other things, the two countries do not want to agree to any new joint statements on immigration from the summit unless they are heard in their demands that they should fully agree on all immigration issues. Still at 11pm Thursday night, there was no solution.
Poland, for example, believes that the possibility of paying for freedom from the care of asylum seekers should be seen instead as a penalty.
– No to the fines set by Brussels, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a recorded message, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Meloni — who belongs to the same European party family as Morawiecki, as well as the Swedish SD — disagrees.
– I think the compromise was balanced, says the Italian, who likes to take credit for how the EU has moved towards increasing emphasis on cooperation with, for example, Tunisia and other non-EU countries on migration policy.
recovered?
Even Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is feeling the tailwind. In February, Denmark and seven other countries wrote a letter to EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel calling for more “innovative solutions”.
– It can be a reception center outside Europe. She made it clear on her way to the EU summit that this could be cooperation with third countries.
– We seem to be supported to a much higher degree that there must be new thinking in this area, says Frederiksen.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (C) says there is a growing consensus that the status quo cannot continue.
– It is very important to ensure that those entering the EU have obtained permission to do so. We cannot continue to have people travel across Europe without permission. It’s a consensus view, Christerson says on his way to the summit.
This may include measures such as agreements with countries outside the European Union, such as Turkey and Tunisia. However, Christerson claims, the issue of asylum centers outside the EU is not part of a broad European discussion now.
EU Commissioners Margaritis Schinas and Ylva Johansson presented the Commission’s proposal for a “new pact for asylum and migration” in September 2020. It includes, among other things, new common rules for faster processing at borders, an increased focus on returning people without grounds for asylum, and “solidarity”. Mandatory, in which states undertake to assist each other in various ways in crisis situations.
Proposals usually need to be approved by both the EU Parliament and its member states. In parliament, this spring, members agreed on how they wanted the rules to look, while member states agreed on their view of the heavier parts at a ministerial meeting in early June.
Settlement negotiations have since begun to reconcile the various lines before the final settlement is officially approved by both sides. According to the plan, everything should be ready in the first quarter of 2024, just in time for next year’s EU elections.
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