EU ministers inch forward on refugee pact

By Jacopo Barigazzi

Progress on the stickiest issue is postponed for another day after migration meeting.

European ministers haggled on Thursday over how to share the redistribution across Europe of 60,000 refugees — but stalemated on the stickiest issue.
Interior ministers gathered in Luxembourg for an informal meeting agreed to resettle more than 20,000 asylum seekers, though a deal on relocating another 40,000 already in Europe was postponed to another meeting to take place July 20 in Brussels.

“On resettlement we have a consensus that goes even beyond the 20,000 figure [..] by about 2,000 people,” Luxembourg’s home affair minister Jean Asselborn told a press conference after the meeting.  Decisions on the larger and more controversial relocation figure is pushed to another day, but a deal, he said, “is not far.”
The meeting was described as “not an easy one” by EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.
How to handle the growing influx of migrants and refugees making the trek across the Mediterranean rose to the top of the EU agenda in April after hundreds died making the trip.
The European Commission proposed in May that members states take 40,000 asylum seekers now in Italy and Greece via mandatory quotas — a highly divisive idea that ultimately fell apart.  A voluntary resettlement of another 20,000 from countries outside the bloc was less controversial.
Member states ultimately decided that while the 40,000 relocation figure would remain mandatory, it would be up to the individual countries to step up with pledges of their own.
That proved to be the major sticking point at the meeting on Thursday.
Luxembourg, which took over the rotating presidency of the Council this month, has held many bilateral meetings with members states to gather their views, according to diplomatic sources.
From these meetings, which diplomats call confessions, commitments to relocate about 35,000 of the 40,000 refugees have been pledged, four diplomatic sources close to the talks say.
“And now we have to see whether we can move the excess we have on resettlement on relocation,” said Asselborn.
He also explained that the excess on resettlement is partly due to the fact that countries not part of the EU, namely Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein, have said they would contribute.
But the biggest pledges come with strings attached, mainly assurances that other countries step up as well.
France, Germany, Netherlands and other countries have made clear that they will take in the amount of refugees requested by the Commission – but only if reluctant Central European countries are willing to do the same.
Germany would be ready to have the lion’s share, taking about 9,000 of the 40,000 refugees to relocate and other 3,000 for resettlement, according to two sources.
But according to two different accounts, the Germans are frustrated with the lack of solidarity by some member states. In one instance, a German diplomat argued that if there is no coming together, then the money aimed at reducing regional disparities in income and wealth should be rediscussed.
Latvia, for example, is willing to take 250, half of what envisaged in the original Commission proposal, according to one diplomatic source close to the talks.

Hungary and Bulgaria, exposed to a heavy influx of migrants and refugees, are expected to take none, as suggested in the European Council, although their positions have not been officially settled yet.
Under existing treaties, the U.K., Ireland and Denmark are not obliged to participate in the migration plan.
Two countries have not presented any figure, according to diplomatic sources: Spain and Austria. Yet, according to the same sources, this does not mean that they are refusing to take part into the relocation.

Squabbles over criteria

Other divisions are weighing down the talks,, including the criteria for those already in Europe to apply for relocation.
The Commission proposed distribution keys based on four factors: the size of population and Gross Domestic Product, plus the unemployment rate and the number of asylum applications received.
These last two factors have been rejected by some member states.
Some Eastern European countries that so far they have taken in few refugees complain that using the number of asylum applications already received would be punitive to them.
Spain, with among the highest jobless rate in Europe, wants unemployment given more weight.
Thus only GDP and population are the main factors considered by some countries as valid. In determining the 250 asylum-seekers figure, Latvia has considered only population and GDP, and Estonia and Lithuania are taking the same line, according to a diplomatic source.
That would mean that they would be ready to take about half of the refugees the Commission has been asking for, which, in the case of Latvia, was 517 refugees.
Another issue under discussion: how to define the neediest.
The Commission has stated that the relocation scheme is intended only for those “in clear need of protection.” The criteria: Those with an average EU recognition rate for international protection that is equal or above 75 percent, according to data from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Only Syrians and Eritreans would qualify under that criteria but, according to two diplomatic sources, some member states are arguing for flexibility, including for example, Iraqis, since the next migration crisis could stem from there.

And the migrants keep coming

More than 660,000 refugees applied for international protection in the EU last year, “representing both the highest number and the sharpest year-to-year growth (up 43 percent compared to 2013) since the beginning of EU-level data collection in 2008,” according to the annual Report on the Situation of Asylum in the EU presented a few days ago by Easo, the Malta-based EU asylum support office.
The highest figures of asylum applicants recorded were from Syria, the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia combined), and Eritrea.
The main receiving European countries were Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, and Hungary.
At the end of 2014, more than 500,000 persons were awaiting a decision on their asylum application, meaning the volume of pending applications was up 37 percent from the previous year.