2023-09-28 16:11:00
According to representatives of the EU institutions, some “detailed questions” still need to be clarified before an agreement can be expected in the “coming days”.
The recent events in Lampedusa showed that the EU really needs the asylum and migration pact, emphasized the current Council President and Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gomez at the press conference following the Council in Brussels. He spoke of very good negotiations on the way to an agreement on the controversial crisis mechanism. A “very broad majority” of member states agree with the general approach: “We are close to an agreement.”
Like Grande-Marlaska, EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson was also very optimistic “that we will be able to announce a general direction for the crisis mechanism in the next few days.” Only a few detailed questions still need to be clarified. She sees a large majority in favor of the proposal and expects an agreement at EU ambassador level before the informal European Council next Friday in Granada, Spain.
Time requested
According to AFP, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said during a visit to Berlin that Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi had “requested time to examine the contents of this proposal in more detail, including from a legal perspective.” According to Italian media, Piantedosi left the Brussels meeting with his EU colleagues early and traveled back to Rome. The background is apparently the long-simmering dispute with Germany over the financing of private sea rescue organizations in the Mediterranean. Tajani accused the non-governmental organizations of promoting “human trafficking” to Italy.
Further negotiations are likely to be underway behind the scenes. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) also indirectly confirmed this to journalists in Brussels on Thursday followingnoon: The crisis regulation was “discussed very intensively today” and is “obviously still being discussed”. According to Karner, Austria will abstain as things stand. What is crucial, however, is “that the overall package gets underway.”
Germany agreed
After the Council, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser spoke of a “political agreement” on the crisis regulation, despite the apparent concerns from Italy. Italy did not speak out once morest the compromise text in the Council itself. She expressed confidence that an agreement would be reached at ambassadorial level. Faeser explained that Germany now agreed that, according to the last compromise, the procedures of children and their families at the external borders should be given priority. In addition, humanitarian standards when accepting refugees would not be lowered. The crisis regulation can only be activated by a qualified majority decision of the EU countries.
The crisis regulation is part of the EU asylum and migration package. After the EU member states have so far failed to agree on a common position around a planned crisis regulation, the EU Parliament put negotiations on other parts of the migration deal on hold last week. The crisis regulation is intended to establish exceptions to the asylum rules in the event that a member state is faced with a particularly high number of refugees arriving.
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