BRUSSELS. Reduce departures and increase returns. The European turning point on migration policies focuses on the external dimension, and does not disappoint expectations on a political agreement between EU leaders gathered in Brussels for the European Council summit.
The heads of state and government give the European Commission the mandate to identify the key third countries, the politically reliable and strategic ones to curb flows, and to prepare operational measures and lines of financing for the autumn.
Specifically, it is a question of strengthening “concrete actions and tangible support” for priority countries of origin and transit. For these “priority” interlocutors, “action plans” are required, with clear objectives, further support measures and concrete timelines.
The goal is to limit landings by preventing them from happening. For this reason, the focus is on the involvement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (Iom), a connected international body of the UN, to work on the transit area of migrants before they leave on their way to the European Union and reach its borders. It is a question of supporting refugees and displaced persons locally, in the region, encouraging them to stop and turn around.
The task entrusted to the European Commission, to be carried out in any case “in close cooperation with the Member States”, will not be easy. Having to interact with different governments, a “flexible and diversified” approach is required. It means making agreements that are all different, to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis, from time to time.
To allow the creation of hotspots in third countries, the heads of state and government decide to use the resources allocated to neighborhood, development and international cooperation policies (Ndici), and to “make the best possible use of at least 10% of the budget financial »overall. The financial instrument for the EU’s external action boasts resources of 79.5 billion euros, and the decision of the leaders is to use about eight billion of this expenditure to reduce the number of arrivals. Here the deadlines for the Commission are more precise: it is not postponed to autumn but to November. It is within this deadline that the EU executive will have to say how it intends to use these eight billion euros.
There is also unity in rejecting the blackmail of those who see flows as a tool to try to destabilize the European Union and its member states. The European Council “condemns and rejects” any attempt by third countries to exploit migrants for political ends. No particular reference, but Belarus is certainly in the background. The leaders of Latvia and Lithuania denounced the intentions of the Minsk government to open the borders with the Baltic republics to migrants, especially Iraqis and Iranians.
The agreement on the external dimension of migratory phenomena adds to the other understanding found by the leaders for Turkey. The leaders of the Twenty-seven offer 3.5 billion euros to the Turkish government to close the Balkan route.