The EU and its countries are sleepwalking into a make a break moment for a common approach to migration policies, as right-wingers are strong-arming the bloc to either compromise on its values or see cooperation fall apart all together.
In recent weeks, Europeans have seen a surge in headlines about EU migration and border policy, with the flow showing no signs of slowing down. Decoded covered this just a few weeks ago, but the continuous stream of news paints an increasingly dire picture.
Hungary and the Netherlands have asked for the EU to reopen its treaties to include an opt-out from the EU’s migration policies for both countries – however slim the chances.
The new French Home Affairs Minister Bruno Retailleau is openly flirting with idea revisiting the hallmark EU Migration Pact from earlier this year, saying “we must review EU legislations that are no longer adapted, I’m thinking first and foremost of the return directive… It is time we change EU rules.’
The return directive is a core piece of the Pact that countries and the European Parliament agreed in April, ending a deadlock on that could be traced back to the summer of 2015.
But doubts about the Pact are growing within the Parliament as it “does not provide us with all the necessary means to protect the European Union from illegal immigration,” a senior MEP from the centre-right EPP told Euractiv.
Finally, tensions are also growing in the EU partnership country of Tunisia, with a Guardian report unveiling grave misconduct and abuse by the country’s officials towards migrants hoping to reach EU borders.
EU will hang together or hang separately
One thing is for certain: this is a critical moment for how the EU handles migration – now and in the future. If things are going as Budapest and the Hague would like it to, efforts to find cross-bloc solutions will cease and migration policy will be a responsibility solely for the individual member states.
For all their criticism of the EU’s approach, some political forces right of centre appear more than content to leverage Brussels’s legislative muscles – when it suits them, that is.
Georgia Meloni’s Italy, for example was one of the staunchest supporters of cooperation with EU partners as the Migration Pact was negotiated.
But just after a deal on the Pact was struck in May, 15 member states from all sides of the political spectrum wrote a letter to the Commission calling for tougher migration measures – building on the Italy-Albania protocol, where migrants picked up by the Italian coastguard are brought to camps in Albania to have their asylum applications processed.
That idea has endured. Last week, as reported by my colleague, Nick Allipour, the socialist-led government of Germany warming up to a similar solution solution. Even some in Brussels appear open to the idea of processing migrants’ cases outside of EU territory, Decoded understands.
However, according to Prime Minister Edi Rama, Albania is not sticking around to play bouncer for the rest of the Union – that privilege is reserved for Italy. But other third countries could be more keen to help.
In 2023, the Commission drew up partnerships with Egypt and Tunisia, essentially paying the countries to keep migrants from arriving in Europe.
However, last week’s reports of Tunisian authorities’ abusive and seemingly unlawful handling of migrants, will be worrying to the EU executive.
So, the EU is caught between a rock and a hard place. Either it follows Budapest and The Hague, leaving each member state to its own devices – risking both freedom of movement and Schengen cooperation in the process.
Or it follows the path that more and more member states seem inclined to take: a European solution, but one that compromises European values and may mean turning a blind eye to human rights abuses.
