Migration is back at the top of the political agenda in Europe. The issue is threatening to bring down the government of the EU’s richest country and tear through the European Council summit next week, but leaders seem further than ever from a solution.
POLITICO, argues that there are two main reasons for this — Italy and Germany.
Italy’s coalition government made up of the far-right League and populist 5Star Movement has pushed the issue to the top of their country’s, and hence the EU’s, agenda.
The second reason is that the political marriage between Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and her Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, which has sustained Germany’s chancellor in power since 2005 is on the rocks over the issue — with tensions even threatening to bring down the government. The CSU wants to turn back asylum seekers arriving at the country’s southern border who have registered in another European country from entering Germany.
Which other countries are worried about migration?
Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Austria under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz have taken a hard line on migration. The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia have also resisted taking in refugees.
What has been the European reaction so far?
Call it a delayed political reaction to the migration crisis in 2015. The numbers of migrants reaching Europe’s shores is actually much lower now as a result of moves to close the route through the Balkans as well as deals with Turkey and Libya. Applications for asylum fell by 44 percent across the EU in 2017 compared to the previous year, according to a report by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) released earlier this month.
Is there anything they can agree on?
Maybe.
Draft guidelines for the European Council summit next week include a proposal for the creation of “regional disembarkation platforms” outside the European Union. These are locations, possibly in North Africa, where officials could quickly differentiate between refugees in need of protection and economic migrants who would potentially face return to their countries of origin.
Isn’t that just outsourcing the problem to migrant camps outside the EU?
The European Commission insists not.
Avramopoulos said Thursday the EU won’t create a “Guantánamo Bay for migrants,” referring to the controversial U.S. detention camp in Cuba. “I’m against Guantánamo Bay for migrants, this is something that is against European values,” he said.
Read more here from POLITICO’s article What is Europe’s migration fight about?
