Dear readers,
Welcome to EU Politics Decoded, brought to you today by Nicoletta Ionta and Magnus Lund Nielsen, your essential guide for staying up-to-date with the Brussels bubble. Together with Nicholas Wallace, we form Euractiv's new politics line-up. Subscribe to Politics Decoded here.
In today’s edition
- Migration both splits and binds the Union: United in what divides them, France and Germany trade barbs over border policies
- Bits of the week: New Commission might be much delayed, Scholz ready for Putin at Peace Summit, Poles might decide the polls in US election.
Despite being years in the making, last April's EU Migration Pact far from closed the debate on Europe and its borders. This week, both in national and EU politics, it has been proven that migration remains as potent an issue as ever.
From Germany's decision to reintroduce border controls at its land borders to Hungary threatening to bus migrants to Brussels to France appointing migration hardliner Michel Barnier as prime minister, long-standing disagreements about burden-sharing in the bloc have been re-ignited.
According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, migration is the “unresolved issue” of Europe. To fix the quagmire, countries should be able to opt out of the Union’s common migration policy, he said over the weekend.
Hungary then grabbed headlines throughout the week over some controversial comments from mid-August. State Secretary Bence Rétvári suggested sending migrants arriving in Hungary to Brussels – by bus, “free of charge”.
The word seems to travel slowly from Budapest to Brussels as Belgium’s State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, belatedly criticised the move on Monday, stating that "threats of this kind undermine solidarity and cooperation within the Union."
Born out of deadlock, Prime Minister Barnier courts right-wing
After weeks of fruitless negotiations in the first hung parliament in modern French history, President Macron has picked former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as the new French prime minister.
Casting aside the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) coalition, the French parliament’s largest grouping, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), now holds Prime Minister Barnier’s fate in their hands. Should he face a vote of no-confidence, their vote would be decisive.
Acutely aware of their role as potential king killers, RN party leader and president of the newly formed Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, Jordan Bardella, did not want to rush judgment on the incoming French government. Voting against the new government would risk throwing France into “institutional disorder and democratic chaos,” according to Bardella. However, the RN and Barnier are aligned on one crucial subject: Barnier has "the same views on immigration as we do," the party's figurehead, Marine Le Pen, said this weekend.
As our colleague Théo Bourgery-Gonse wrote on Wednesday (11 September), the difficult parliamentary situation could throw Barnier into the arms of Marine Le Pen and her RN, prompting hardline policies on migration.
Brexit boss reaching over the Channel
Among the first orders of business – apart from a looming budget crisis – for Barnier might be to reach out across the Channel to solve the issue of small boat crossings.
In northern France, on September 3, 12 people died when their boat sank while attempting to reach the UK. A summer of similar tragedies saw the issue drive election campaigns on both sides of La Manche.
Germany’s new border controls might further complicate the situation, as more irregular migrants denied asylum in Germany may attempt to cross into Calais or the UK.
Meanwhile, the still-young British Labour government is “taking steps to boost our border security,” the UK Home Office stated in August. "We all want to see an end to dangerous small boat crossings, which undermine border security and put lives at risk.”
European solutions looming
Speaking with MEPs, few seem enthusiastic about revisiting the extensive legislative package, the Migration Pact. Still, a lot of its implementation has yet to be established.
The push from member states might pave the way for tougher measures – within the remit of the Migration Pact. Countries across the bloc are pushing to break more taboos on migration policy. Recent letters between the Commission and member states suggest that relocation measures, similar to the current Italy-Albania model, but on a European scale, could be on the cards.
