Leaders from across the European Union have reached a migration agreement at a Brussels, Belgium, summit, following a series of extensive discussions on the issue.
The 28 EU leaders have reached a migration agreement over several approaches which will aim to address migration across the EU, including migrant centres, strengthened external border controls and internal measures which intend to prevent migrants from moving between countries within the EU.
What are the views on migration amongst member states?
With the EU bloc deeply divided over migration, with some member states more directly affected than others, several Central European states have rejected an EU scheme which would seek to relocate 160,000 refugee camps in Greece and Italy, of which are vastly overcrowded.
Despite urgent negotiations between member states, the crisis has somewhat diminished from the scale of migration in 2015, whereby thousands of migrants were reaching the shores of the Greek islands on a daily basis, the European Council adds that the number of those entering the EU illegally have dropped by 96% since the migration peak.
What had led to migration agreement crisis talks?
Tensions have risen this month, whereby migrant rescue ships have been refused entry from Italian ports, including a German charity ship called Lifeline, of which has repositioned migration at the top of the EU agenda. Following intense diplomacy amongst a number of member states, where each of those involved agreed to receive some of the migrants on board, Lifeline was allowed to dock in Malta. Norway later agreed to receiving some of this share.
In the lead up to the agreement between member states, Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister, had blocked conclusions from the talks until all member states had reached an agreement on an approach to migration, where assistance would be provided to Italy. Equally, Greece also believe that other countries should relieve the burden of migration on the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that migration could be one point which defines the EU, yet also outlined that the summit was needed in order to forestall a political crisis within Germany, of which could see the collapse of her government. Meanwhile, the German Chancellor’s Bavarian coalition partner Horst Seehofer, the interior minister of the Christian Social Union (CSU), set a deadline which would block migrants pre-registered from entering through the German border.
Should the CSU believe that the German Chancellor has failed to do enough, Merkel’s parliamentary majority will be at stake. At 00:50 CET, the German Chancellor added that there is “a lot of work to do to bridge the different views” between member states.
What conditions have been agreed amongst EU member states?
The 28 EU leaders have agreed to a number of measures which aim to address and regulate migration across member states, including:
- Strengthened external border controls, as well as boosting finance for countries such as Turkey and those in North Africa;
- The potential for “regional disembarkation platforms”, aimed at breaking the business model of people-smuggling gangs through processing refugees and migrants outside of the EU;
- Internal measures enforced by member states which would stop migrants from moving within the EU. However, the agreement said that this enforcement undermined asylum policy and Schengen travel area, which is free of borders;
- Bolstering efforts to “prevent the development of new sea or land routes” into Europe;
- Further investment in Africa in efforts to support the continent in achieving a “substantial socio-economic transformation”, reducing the number of those leaving in search for improved quality of life;
- Further work which seeks to reform EU asylum policy would also oversee changes to the “Dublin regulation”, whereby migrants must be considered for asylum upon their arrival to the first safe country.
