EU leaders clinch migration deal in marathon summit

Talking through the night, EU leaders surmounted an Italian blockade and clinched a tentative deal early Friday morning to create new “centers” on European soil for housing and processing asylum seekers, and to take an array of other cooperative steps on migration policy.

The deal, reached at 4:35 a.m., still falls short of an overall agreement to revise the EU’s asylum rules, which has bedevilled and eluded leaders since the height of the migration crisis in 2015. But the accord represented a crucial — if not complete — consensus on the bloc’s most divisive issue and stands to ease some political pressure, particularly on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The deal strikes a balance between concerns of frontier, coastline countries hit hardest by arrivals of migrants and asylum seekers, and the political demands of interior nations who want to stop migrants traveling on to their countries — and the leaders’ conclusions sought to emphasize a sense of unity and resolve.

“This is a challenge not only for a single member state but for Europe as a whole,” the leaders declared. Citing success in reducing the numbers of arrivals in recent years, the leaders added, “The European Council is determined to continue and reinforce this policy to prevent a return to the uncontrolled flows of 2015 and to further stem illegal migration on all existing and emerging routes.”

Exhausted leaders, exiting as the sun rose, expressed a sense of triumph, and relief. “After intensive discussion on perhaps the most challenging topic for the European Union, it’s a good message that we agreed on a common text,” Merkel told reporters.

The migration issue had rocketed to the top of the Council summit agenda in recent weeks as Merkel faced an acute political challenge from her coalition partner, Bavaria’s Christian Social Union and its leader, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who threatened to impose tough new border rules to stop migrants from entering Germany.

Merkel won crucial language in the declarations addressing those concerns that will help bolster her position against Seehofer and other critics complaining about so-called secondary movements of migrants, who register in one EU country and then cross into another.

“Secondary movements of asylum seekers between member states risk jeopardising the integrity of the Common European Asylum system and the Schengen” common travel area, the leaders declared. “Member states should take all necessary internal legislative and administrative measures to counter such movements.”

Long dinner

The discussion about migration and asylum began over a leaders’ dinner shortly after 8 p.m., following a brief update on Brexit by U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, and it stretched past 4 a.m., with the leaders personally hashing out the details around the table. They did not roll up their sleeves but did pull out pens, and scratch out ideas by hand, according to photos from inside the room.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz acknowledged Friday’s agreement is by no means the end of the debate within the EU on asylum and migration, and leaders said they would continue working to revise the overall asylum rules.“It was a long and hard discussion, there are still many very different approaches in the European Union,” Kurz said.

EU leaders had fully expected a protracted discussion on the issue, and Council President Donald Tusk weeks ago had given up hope on reaching consensus on the so-called Dublin regulation on asylum policies. Instead, Tusk had proposed focusing on universally acceptable proposals to toughen border controls and enforcement, including the establishment of processing centers for asylum seekers outside EU territory, to be operated in partnership with the United Nations refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration.

But Tusk’s cautious, consensus-based approach fell victim to an inflammatory political debate triggered by Merkel’s problems in Bavaria and the installation of a populist government in Italy.

Italy reacted furiously to Merkel’s call for a mini-summit last weekend focused on secondary movements that seemed to steal attention from Rome’s longstanding complaint that frontier nations are unfairly burdened by asylum seekers’ arrivals, and do not get sufficient help from other EU nations.

Controversial Conte

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, attending his first European Council summit, astonished other leaders on Thursday afternoon by blocking all of their planned joint conclusions, including on noncontroversial topics. Conte, to the dismay of his colleagues, said he would not agree to anything before the conclusion of the difficult migration debate.

It was a stunning debut for the novice Italian politician, a lawyer and law professor, who has never previously served in public office, but emerged as the compromise premier in the governing coalition of the anti-establishment 5Stars and the Euroskeptic, hard-right League. And it clearly won him no friends.

At one point, after Conte claimed to be taking a lawyerly approach to the development of Council conclusions — which in fact are political statements and do not have force of law — other leaders openly mocked him with their own professional credentials. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven cited his experience as a welder and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov chipped in, “I am a firefighter.”

Conte’s blocking move also prompted lengthy explanations of Council procedure, including from Tusk, and it led one senior EU official to note, with some exasperation: “There is no fix.”

French President Emannuel Macron intervened, with support from new Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, by pushing for a proposal to create the so-called controlled center” — essentially, secured refugee camps — on EU soil, mainly in frontline countries willing to host them, to be financed and managed collectively by the EU.

The Italians initially opposed the concept, fearing it would add yet more to the burden on frontier countries, but ultimately relented as compromise provisions and reassurances were tacked on to the plan — including a proviso that the EU would still push to establish the processing centers, also called disembarkation platforms, in North Africa.

The Council conclusions stress that the new controlled centers inside the EU would be set up “only on a voluntary basis … without prejudice to the Dublin reform” leaving an opening for Italy to renew its push for mandatory relocations of refugees under a quota system — an approach that has little support across the bloc. The conclusions call for “a speedy solution to the whole package,” with a progress report due at the October Council summit.

‘Not alone’

The plan also includes a declaration that asylum seekers landing in Italy will be regarded as arriving “in Europe” — essentially a rhetorical message that responsibility for them will be shared, though exactly how is not fully spelled out.

“Italy is not alone anymore,” Conte said once the deal was reached.

Sánchez, who like Conte leads the government of a frontline country and was also attending his very first Council summit, set himself apart from the Italian by playing a conciliatory role throughout.

Meanwhile, the Visegrad Four group of Central European countries — Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia — that have been most resistant to accepting refugees and fiercely opposed to any mandatory quotas, said they could accept the text.

One diplomat said the Visegrad Four were still adamant that frontier countries should be responsible for enforcing border controls, and had pushed to limit the use of the word “solidarity” in the text of the compromise deal.

Rare block

Diplomats noted that there previous examples of countries blocking the formal Council conclusions — the last instance being in March 2017, when Poland did so in opposition to the reelection of Tusk as Council president. Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, is a nemesis of Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the governing Law and Justice party.

And in December 2016, Austria blocked conclusions in a dispute over whether Turkey should remain a candidate country for EU membership.

But officials said that the Italians badly miscalculated in this case, in part because they were on track to win many of their demands without engaging in obstruction — simply because their goals were aligned with the political imperatives of Merkel, who is still the EU’s most influential leader.

Conte also put himself and League leader Matteo Salvini at risk of stalling cooperative ventures with broad support, including strengthening EU defense cooperation, pushing legislative initiatives that promote digital innovation, and speeding work on the bloc’s next long-term budget.

In the end, the agreement reached before dawn included approval of the full set of Council conclusions, along with the migration package.

Even after reaching agreement on the migration package, leaders still weren’t done. A very short discussion then followed on Russia, and the continuing lack of progress in implementing the Minsk 2 peace agreement in eastern Ukraine. Officials said the result was consensus on a six-month rollover of sanctions against Russia.

In addition, the leaders agreed to support a plan to reshape the European Parliament after Brexit.

Leaders seemed happy, and exhausted, as they left the Council. Sánchez called the agreement “good news” for Spain and for Europe. Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen looked at the television cameras on his way out and yawned.

Andrew Gray contributed reporting.

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