5 ways the EU migration strategy is unraveling

By Jacopo Barigazzi

Another migration summit, but will it do any good?

Brussels will host yet another emergency meeting Sunday on migration as divisions both inside and outside the EU threaten to undermine Europe’s response to the refugee crisis.
One EU diplomat described the political situation leading into a weekend mini-summit of several European leaders on refugee flows along the Western Balkans route as “very, very difficult.” Countries grappled with escalating tensions on a number of fronts: from how much money will be spent and where, to disputes along shared borders, to arguments over how many asylum-seekers can be relocated, to persistent unrest in the Middle Eastern countries of origin for many refugees.

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The tension ahead of the meeting boiled up in Madrid on Thursday afternoon, when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both members of the same political group, expressed radically different views on how to deal with the crisis.
Merkel is the prime mover behind Sunday’s meeting, convened at her request by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Orbán will also be there, as will the leaders of six other EU countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Slovenia) and two from outside the bloc (Macedonia and Serbia). The meeting is being billed as mainly addressing operational issues, not political ones, in an effort to “agree common operational conclusions which could be immediately implemented.”
Meanwhile, the measures already agreed by EU leaders are proving difficult to implement, even as they try to find new solutions to the crisis.
Here are five ways the EU’s migration agenda is falling apart:

The Commission is at war with member countries

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos expressed the frustration of the Commission Wednesday when he said the institution had “done its part” in dealing with the refugee crisis, and “now the member states must do their part.”
His comments came as the yearly battle between countries and MEPs over the EU’s annual budget gets under way, a tussle where migration is a major sticking point. The EU is about €2.3 billion short of meeting national promises for the Africa Fund, the Syria Fund and humanitarian aid.
“The Commission has probably been too pushy, as some member states are complaining, but at this point I cannot see any alternative if it wants to deliver,” said an EU diplomat.

There is a relocation bottleneck

The Commission has pushed through the approval of two relocations for 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece. But it is not an easy process.
On Wednesday, 70 asylum-seekers left Italy for Sweden and Finland. A first wave of relocation took place two weeks ago and saw 19 refugees move from Italy to Sweden. Next week, about 30 refugees will move from Greece to Luxembourg, EU officials say. However, only nine countries have told the EU how many migrants they are prepared to take in — a total of just 854. On Tuesday that figure was 150.
“It’s less of a bottleneck than we had Tuesday, but we are still a long way from where we need to be,” an EU official said.
Sweden is taking the lion’s share, around 300, but no central or eastern European country has come up with a figure for how many refugees they will take, and of the Baltic states only Lithuania has made a pledge — it will take four migrants.
“When it comes to details the relocation gets into a local level, involving municipalities and mayors, and here often support is really lacking,” said an EU diplomat.

There is no money on the table

After this weekend the next major date on the migration calendar is the Valletta summit in Malta on November 11 and 12. The meeting will bring together the leaders of countries of origin, transit and destination in Europe and Africa to discuss development programs.
At their summit last week, EU leaders promised to “achieve concrete operational measures” in Valletta, focusing on effective return and readmission policies for migrants not eligible for protection, and the dismantling of criminal networks. They also agreed to promote a “more for more” development aid principle, which on paper at least would mean a cash incentive for African countries to take more migrants back in.
But with member states so slow to put money on the table, the EU is now in danger of going to Malta with little or nothing to offer, EU officials say. Yet there is a plan B which is “either to ask for an additional budget in the course of the year, increase the means for the 2016 budget, or redeploy the money allocated for other things, and there we reach the limit,” said an EU diplomat.

The Libya mess

Here’s where things get even more complicated. The EU has been aiming for a deal between Libya’s two capitals, Tripoli in the west and the internationally recognized Tobruk in the east, to agree on a united government and to allow interventions in Libyan waters, with the government’s consensus, to stop smugglers. The UN envoy to Libya, the Spanish diplomat Bernardino León, has been working hard on that but a third deadline to reach a deal has just passed with no agreement.
No one at this stage wants to talk about military initiatives. For now the focus of EU diplomacy has been to keep on pushing for a deal. “In this moment all our efforts are focused on putting pressure to convince the Libyans,” stressed an EU diplomat.

The Schengen mess

“Fortunately, we have given up border controls between the member states of the Schengen area, to guarantee free movement of people, a unique symbol of European integration,” said Jean-Claude Juncker in his State of the Union speech at the beginning of September.
Yet many countries, including Germany, have since temporarily suspended the agreement to stem the flow of refugees, triggering a debate over Schengen’s future.
Many fear for the future of this border-free zone if no solution to the migration crisis can be found. Surprisingly, among Schengen’s many critics is Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, which in a document published last July on money laundering and human trafficking wrote that “the absence of physical border controls provides significant opportunities for smaller or mid-level organized crime groups … to operate in more than one country” adding that “the movement of an increased number of migrants within the EU has created money laundering opportunities.”