BRUSSELS – At the table of European Council leaders, Mario Draghi is determined to go straight to the point. To shake up the partners, in order to give a qualitative leap to the debate on the issue of migrants to put the pact for migration and asylum – without hesitation or delay – on the agenda of the next Council on 24 and 25 June . It is also addressed to France and Germany, which on the night of the summit do not want to intervene, nor do they give the feeling of engaging too much on the issue.
The Italian premier, this is the line with which he enters the dinner of the Twenty-seven, urgently calls for coordinated management of flows by the Union. He wants to dismiss the traditional emergency approach, that of agreements built only to plug a leak. The invitation is to untie the landings of recent weeks from contingency – a prelude to massive arrivals in the hot season – to mark a turning point, with a structural approach. Also working with the countries of departure and building humanitarian corridors for refugees, for which there is no organic European intervention.
There is a strange silence on the file. An inattention that certainly cannot reassure the Mediterranean countries. Italy is supported in the battle above all by Spain and Portugal, Greece, Malta and Cyprus. Unlike the Germans and the French – who seem willing to take time – the countries of first landing consider spending themselves as a priority for an overall reform. They want to accelerate, because they have sensed that an agreement is struggling to take off. And they are no longer willing to settle for a transitional compromise, which fixes redistribution only on a voluntary basis.
The reasons can be traced first of all in the new phase change. In recent months, also as a result of the easing of the Covid emergency, landings in Italy (and in other coastal countries) have tripled. Imagining the simple re-edition of the “Malta pact” does not seem to respond to the impetus of Draghi, who at this point considers an overall, ambitious, systemic agreement to be fundamental. New rules that go beyond the voluntary subdivision among the adhering countries, and that instead impose the obligatory, European, collegial one.
Politics also weighs in this game. Rome and the other capitals overlooking the Mediterranean know that they will have to face a summer of landings.
All governments, already grappling with the economic crisis, cannot afford the pressure of the anti-migrant right and must build solutions to the height. To do so, however, they must overcome the current deadlock.
The reform presented by Ursula von der Leyen last September lies dusty in the drawers of the Chancelleries, slowed down by the crossed vetoes of the Visegrad and Mediterranean countries. And it risks being postponed to the end of 2021. In this sense, the forthcoming German electoral campaign and the French presidential elections of 2022 weigh a lot. current hypothesized system, which is mandatory but not very taxing on countries that evade commitments.
But that is not all. The capitals most interested in the reform also insist a lot on the need for a system pact with the countries of the Northern Mediterranean. Whether this also leads to the disbursement of funding to Tunisia and Libya will probably be a debate in the coming months. For this to happen, some resistance from Merkel will have to be overcome, in particular with respect to Tripoli. Of course, this possibility runs the risk of crossing over with Germany’s request to promote the disbursement of a third tranche of loans to Turkey to control flows.
The appointment is therefore in June, at the next Council. Only then will it be understood whether the Italian pressing – and the weight of Draghi – will have been able to move something even in Brussels, or if a new duel on migrants is upon us.
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