Meloni Pushes European Leaders to Toughen Up Migration Rules

(Bloomberg) — Europe’s leaders have begun drafting a tougher migration policy as countries face political pressure to show improvement in reducing the number of arrivals.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with counterparts from several EU countries on Thursday and detailed the country’s recent agreement to send asylum seekers to nearby Albania, a move that has been condemned by some humanitarian groups. The meeting took place ahead of a summit with all 27 EU leaders in Brussels.

While some leaders, such as Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, praised the Italian policy, saying that the EU should make similar deals with other countries, others have criticized the plan as a potential threat to human rights or or is inadequate to the task of controlling migration flows.

EU leaders agreed in their summit conclusions that “new ways to prevent and combat irregular migration should be considered, in line with EU and international law.”

The EU is struggling to maintain a coordinated approach as each country faces different migration pressures. Border countries such as Italy and Greece deal with the influx of migrants while countries such as Germany and Sweden are destinations where many asylum seekers seek to settle. Others, such as Poland and Finland, are confronting the “weaponization” of migration, which Russia and Belarus have said has helped undermine the bloc’s solidarity.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed skepticism about the Italian model, instead calling for early implementation of the EU’s proposed asylum reform.

“It is clear that when you look at the numbers the concepts that are very small drops are not really a solution for a big country like Germany,” Scholz said ahead of an EU Council meeting on Thursday.

Germany has faced criticism from other EU member states after deciding to reintroduce border controls with its neighbors. Scholz was forced to adopt a more restrictive policy after the right-wing, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany won several state elections. But at the same time, there is strong opposition among their own Social Democrats against resettlement centers outside the EU.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has raised some eyebrows with his announcement that Warsaw would temporarily suspend the right to seek asylum in the country, although the plan received support from leaders. The move would apply to illegal attempts to cross the border by migrants who it claims are being brought from the Middle East as part of a “hybrid war”.

“Russia and Belarus, or any other country, cannot be allowed to abuse our values, including the right to asylum, and undermine our democracy,” according to the summit’s conclusions, which expressed solidarity with Poland. The final statement also promised to combat “the instrumentalization of migrants for political purposes”.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent a letter to the bloc’s capitals ahead of the summit raising the possibility of accelerating the implementation of parts of the migration and asylum treaty and saying the bloc would like to “return” asylum seekers. Center”. Non-EU countries.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said that any innovative solution to migration “must be based on our common European values ​​in the context of international law, human rights” and meet the bloc’s “humanitarian obligations”.

He said Britain’s canceled plan to transfer some asylum seekers to Rwanda was “sheer stupidity”, but the EU could also consider other options.

–With assistance from Katharina Roscoff, Lyubov Pronina, Natalia Ozewska and Veronika Gulyas.

(Updated with Council conclusions from fourth paragraph.)

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