Spain’s King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and European heads of state pose for a family photo during a visit to the Court of Lions at the Alhambra Palace on the day of the European Political Community Summit in Granada, Spain, October 5, 2023. Portal/Jon Nazca/File Photo acquire license rights
- Morawiecki and Orban block symbolic EU declaration on migration
- Other leaders say majority reform will move forward regardless
- Disagreements over the unity of the migration bloc
GRANADA, Spain, Oct 6 (Portal) – Poland and Hungary blocked a symbolic European Union statement on migration on Friday, but other leaders gathered at a summit in Spain said they would abide by the rules The Union’s policy on dealing with irregular arrivals needs to be further revised anyway.
So far this year, around 250,000 people have crossed the regular border crossings into the EU, which is home to 450 million people.
Rome, Madrid and Berlin expressed concern about rising irregular immigration, a politically sensitive issue ahead of regional elections in Germany on October 8, a nationwide vote in Poland a week later and a continent-wide parliamentary vote next June.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Germany and Poland’s opposition leader of working together to enforce new EU laws that will fine countries if they refuse to accept people from the Middle East and Africa.
“Poland does not agree to someone else furnishing our house,” Morawiecki said.
His ally and Hungarian immigration opponent Victor Orban also accused the EU of forcing a new migration pact.
Of the 27 EU member states, 22 agreed this week on how to deal with irregular immigration at a time of exceptionally high arrivals, taking a step towards reforming the bloc’s inefficient asylum and migration rules.
The European Parliament must continue negotiating the deal and the bloc’s chief executive said on Friday she was confident a final deal would be reached.
“We can talk a lot about it, but it is now on the way,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“Migration has always been there, it will always be there. The question is how we as Team Europe deal with this… We cannot accept what traffickers do and we cannot let them decide who has access to the EU.”
disagreement
While Poland and Hungary cannot block the EU’s new migration pact and their opposition on Friday was largely symbolic, their sharp criticism raises questions about how effectively the bloc can implement a deal.
“One election after another, migration is at the forefront of our citizens’ concerns,” said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who was also present at the summit. “There is no panacea, but let us not destroy this pact before we accept it.”
The EU has tightened its external borders and asylum laws since more than a million people – mostly fleeing the war in Syria – arrived across the Mediterranean in 2015.
This surprised the Union, overwhelmed the security and reception capacities in the southern member states as well as in rich destination countries such as Germany and triggered bitter disputes between the 27 states over the distribution of the new arrivals.
Years of disagreement over migration have damaged the bloc’s unity, and Friday’s feud suggests it was anything but an over-deal – or a no-deal.
Last month, Germany introduced border controls with its EU partners, saying they were necessary to crack down on people smugglers as irregular entries rose again.
On Friday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that countries that pursue the strongest anti-immigration lines cannot at the same time simply allow refugees and migrants to enter Germany without first properly registering and accepting them on their territory.
Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, Marine Strauss, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Inti Landauro, Andrey Khalip, Gianluca Semeraro, David Latona, Bart Meijer, Andreas Rinke, Andrew Gray, Belen Carreno; writing by Charlie Devereux and Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Josie Kao
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