Italy is the one that started it, the one that is on the ropes, the one that has made the issue a political priority, the one that has turned the issue into an open battle with Germany, the one that has the most demands and the one that, in the end, has decided stop, once again, the negotiation. The arrivals of immigrants and asylum seekers to the country’s coasts have skyrocketed in recent months, arrivals, shipwrecks and deaths are multiplying, political pressure is multiplying, and the Government of Giorgia Meloni has preferred to get up from the table this Thursday, and leave his partners temporarily hanging, than to accept an agreement on the regulations for managing migratory crises, because he knows that it would have been presented as a concession, a defeat.
After noon, Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who did not even intervene in the session, left the table in Brussels and took the plane back early, while the rest of the EU Interior Ministers continued with the agenda. Rome was not going to get what it wanted, it had become clear, and rather than accept a series of relatively minor changes in the regulations that are being fought these days, it opted for the most abrupt exit. It is not a definitive break, because it does not have the capacity to veto, but rather the umpteenth political gesture, a staging more internal than external. Meloni has to show that he is being relentless, that he does not compromise, that his demands will be heard. And today it could not, since the last compromise text had come to fruition after Germany imposed a series of modifications.
The text of the regulation is practically closed, there is a “large, very large majority” to move it forward, according to the Spanish Fernando Grande Marlaska, who chaired the meeting. And given that “there are no major political obstacles, it will be approved in the coming days” by the ambassadors of the 27, as promised by the Spaniard and the Interior Commissioner. Ylva Johansson, at the end of the Council.
All sources consulted agree. Italy needed to throw a punch to be able to assure at home that it had stood. The EU is negotiating the Migration and Asylum Pact, which is legally structured around five different regulations. The first two, on Eurodac (fingerprint comparison system used to help determine the Member State responsible for studying an asylum application) and common procedures and guarantees, were approved some time ago and are in fact almost completed in the negotiation with the European Parliament. The next two, on Asylum and Migration Management and a Common Procedure on International Protection, were agreed upon by a qualified majority in June, with the vote against and the furious opposition of Poland and Hungary, as it speaks of mandatory reception or economic compensation. of up to 20,000 euros per person rejected, which they do not accept.
The fifth remained, that of crisis management. In July it was Germany that stopped it, considering that it did not adequately respect human rights. The Greens, part of Chancellor Scholz’s coalition, have been very insistent. And this summer the position on arrivals and treatment of refugees and NGOs has caused a tough, ugly and recurring fight between Berlin and Rome. On Wednesday, after many discussions, the Spanish presidency presented a compromise text that satisfied the German demands, but which has been unpalatable for the Meloni Government.
There are two main points. The first, the complete rewriting of article 5 of the regulation, which spoke of a relaxation of the minimum “standards” with which asylum seekers must be treated when arriving in countries during a crisis. Summarized and simplified, it means that Italy demanded that in the face of a serious and rapid crisis, in the face of massive arrivals, standards could be lowered, in terms of type of accommodation, space requirements, assistance, etc. The new document excludes that possibility.
The second factor is the so-called “instrumentalization”. The spirit of the regulation seeks to persecute and punish the “instrumentalization” of arrivals, but it is considering whether a third country, or a specific organization, intends to play with the lives of desperate people to put pressure on or destabilize a European country. Italy wanted NGOs that rescue people to be included, after having had repeated clashes with them, arresting their crew members and accusing them of collusion with the trafficking mafias. With the new wording that would also disappear. That’s why the sit-in.
The facts are that there is a sufficient majority to pass the text, but no one wants to approve them without Italy, it would not make sense when it is the country that is experiencing these crises and arrivals the most. The feeling from European colleagues is that Meloni needs to sell it at home. “We need time to study the text,” said the head of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, who is precisely in Berlin to meet with his counterpart. They hope it will be quick, that within a few days, at the level of ambassadors and without so much pressure from the cameras, she will be able to argue that she has managed to turn around again and present herself as victorious, without substantially modifying what seems good to the rest.
Italian sources believe that the agreement will be complicated in a few days. It is not a technical question, but a very political one. And next week the heads of State and Government of the 27 will meet in Granada, so Meloni could try to take the issue to the highest level. “There has been a lot of progress, we are almost at the goal. There is only a difference in nuances, which concern us all, I don’t want to individualize it in a single country,” said Marlaska. “We have lacked a little time, but our satisfaction with the work done remains intact and we are convinced that in the coming days there will be a mandate from the Council to be able to negotiate with Parliament all the legal instruments of the Migration Pact. We are so convinced that I pledge my word that shortly, in a few days, we will have this crisis regulation,” the Spanish minister ventured.
The reference to the negotiation with the European Parliament is relevant. To put pressure on this issue of crisis management, the MEPs have in turn blocked the agreement on the first two in the so-called trilogues. Everything is agreed, but without a definitive green light. If the Council established its position on the regulation, the last step could begin now. And it is not trivial, because the legislature ends in a few months.
The European Union has been trying for years, decades, to push forward a new Migration and Asylum Pact, a divisive, delicate, very hot issue. It is the issue that generates the greatest friction and clashes and therefore a deep, transformative consensus has been impossible. It was not achieved during the savage crisis of 2015 and 2016, which almost destroyed Schengen, the free movement area. And it hasn’t been achieved since then either. Technically, or formally, it is close, but the reality is very different. If in June it was Poland and Hungary that imposed the veto, now it is Rome. The Pact can move forward by qualified majority, but experience shows that this is very dangerous. There is no more sensitive issue, more politically explosive, than what affects the arrivals of African migrants, the identity issue and border management. Approving it and someone not wanting to apply it, ending up in European Justice and while there is chaos, controls, suspicions and confrontations is potentially devastating, as we have seen.
The German Government has announced these days that it will strengthen mobile controls against human trafficking, especially on the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic, while waiting for consensus to be reached on the common European asylum system. Slovenia and Austria are also experiencing enormous friction. Not to mention Italy and France themselves, or Greece that asks for more aid for new flows.