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E.U. Focuses on Porous Borders as Migrant Crisis Worsens Leaders at E.U. Summit Vow to ‘Regain Control’ of Bloc’s Borders
(about 4 hours later)
BRUSSELS — Leaders of the European Union’s member nations gathered on Thursday for their last scheduled summit meeting of the year, under growing pressure to seal their porous borders and overcome months of bickering on the migrant crisis. BRUSSELS — European leaders vowed on Thursday to “regain control” of the Continent’s external frontiers at their final summit meeting of a year bracketed by lethal terrorist attacks in Paris and convulsed by brutal blows to Europe’s common currency and to its faith in a common destiny without borders.
The main focus of the gathering is how to get Greece and Italy to regain control of their coastlines before the crisis gets any worse. The huge influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa is threatening to overwhelm public services in countries like Germany and Sweden, and is fueling the rise of populist anti-European political movements. But the meeting, dominated like seven previous gatherings since May by Europe’s migration crisis, offered no new concrete measures to control and slow an often chaotic influx that has seen more than a million people fleeing war and poverty pour into the Continent this year.
Reinforcing the bloc’s external borders is a priority for France, especially after the terrorist attacks in Paris last month. Investigators have said that two of the Paris assailants posed as refugees to enter the European Union through Greece, and then moved within the bloc undetected. Instead, leaders promised only to act on previous decisions, including a promise made in November to give Turkey 3 billion euros, or more than $3.2 billion, in return for help on stemming the flow. They declined to endorse proposals for a new border and coast guard service, with a joint final statement on migration saying only that they would “rapidly examine” them later.
Also on the agenda are separate British demands concerning movement within Europe that a number of other member states have said are unacceptable. In exchange for his country remaining in the bloc, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain wants to be able to bar new arrivals from receiving some benefits until they have been in the country for four years — a policy that critics say would be discriminatory and would conflict with the union’s principle of freedom of movement. There was also no sign of significant progress on averting what, in coming months, could well be the biggest threat yet to the process of European integration — the prospect that Britain might pull out of the 28-nation European Union.
Mr. Cameron’s pledge to hold a referendum by 2017 on Britain’s membership in the bloc has driven Britain’s demands high on the European agenda. “We’re not pushing for a deal tonight, but we are pushing for real momentum,” said Mr. Cameron before the summit meeting began. “The four horsemen of the apocalypse are circling,” said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research group based in London, referring to the security threat raised by a newly assertive Russia, the chaotic influx of asylum seekers, Greece’s calmed but far-from-solved financial crisis and Britain’s future direction.
Much the way the crisis over the single euro currency did in recent years, the migrant crisis has thrown one of the bloc’s flagship policy achievements into question: the free movement of citizens across most of Europe’s internal borders under what are called the Schengen rules. The European Union, Mr. Grant said, has faced periods of severe turbulence in the past without long-term damage, notably in 1992, when Britain and Italy pulled out of an arrangement designed to limit currency fluctuations and Danish voters rejected a landmark European treaty in a referendum. “But this year’s is probably worse,” he added.
Though the crisis is grave, the European Union leadership is trying to improvise solutions. There was little sign that the 28 member countries would be able to agree on a unified approach that would safeguard the Schengen rules, which are cherished by many Europeans, while at the same time limiting the arrival and movement of migrants from outside the bloc. Europe has maintained an unexpected degree of unity in response to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March last year and, after months of bruising negotiation over a bailout, managed in July to prevent Greece from crashing out of the eurozone. But its failure to stem the flow of migrants has not only threatened one of Europe’s proudest achievements, the 26-nation Schengen zone of visa-free travel, but also allowed so-called euroskeptics in Britain to exploit the chaos to rally public support for an exit from the union.
Going into the summit meeting, the bloc still appeared divided on the issue. A small group of leaders, including Chancellors Angela Merkel of Germany and Werner Faymann of Austria, met with the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, to discuss directly resettling in Europe migrants who are now sheltering in Turkey, rather than waiting for them to attempt a hazardous and illegal crossing to Greece. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who has pledged to hold a referendum on the country’s membership in the bloc by 2017, has said he wants Britain to stay in the union but only as long as it gets various concessions, including the right to exclude European migrants from some benefits for up to four years. These migrants enter Britain legally, unlike most of the asylum-seekers pouring into Europe, but have become associated in the minds of many Britons with the broader, Europewide mess over migration.
Turkey is demanding as much help as possible in dealing with the roughly 2.2 million refugees already on its territory, in return for securing its border to slow the influx. Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, Mr. Cameron said he wanted to propel his demands to the top of the European agenda. “We’re not pushing for a deal tonight, but we are pushing for real momentum,” Mr. Cameron said ahead of the summit meeting.
The majority of European Union member states appear to be unwilling to participate in such a plan, so it would have to be voluntary, and would probably resettle only a fraction of the refugees in Turkish camps. How difficult this will be, however, was clear from comments on Thursday by Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, the body that represents European Union leaders, who sets the agenda for such meetings and is expected to hammer out compromises.
European Union governments are also discussing ways to finance a separate agreement the bloc reached with Turkey in November, which was meant to provide 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) to improve the humanitarian situation for migrants in Turkey in exchange for Turkey acting to stop them from attempting to reach Greece illegally. Mr. Tusk said that there was “good will” ahead of the discussions with Mr. Cameron scheduled for Thursday evening and that a final deal could come in February. But, in an apparent reference to Mr. Cameron’s demands to restrict benefits to migrants, Mr. Tusk warned that “some parts of the British proposal seem unacceptable.”
Amnesty International and other rights groups have accused the Turkish authorities of abusing, shackling and beating migrants and has called for a suspension of migration-related cooperation with Ankara. In a joint statement issued late Thursday in Brussels, the leaders of four Eastern and Central European nations — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — rebuffed Britain’s principal request, vowing to resist any move that “would be discriminatory or limit free movement” within the European Union.
The union’s own effort to relocate tens of thousands of migrants out of the main first-arrival countries, Greece and Italy, has failed to gain much traction; only about 200 people have been moved to other European countries under the program. The departure of Britain from the bloc would throw into reverse for the first time the so-called European project, a program of integration that began with six countries with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and that has since expanded to 28 nations, with several others, like Serbia and Macedonia, eager to join.
The latest initiative involves having the union take control of border and coastal security at the sites where the most migrants are arriving. But the proposal, by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive agency, could get bogged down in arguments among national governments and the European Parliament. The issue of whether Britain stays or goes, Mr. Grant said, “is the most difficult of all the E.U.’s crises because it ultimately depends on British voters,” over whose decision other countries in the bloc have no control and little influence.
The border proposals already face opposition in countries like Poland, where some politicians fear a power grab by Brussels meant to diminish national sovereignty, even while those countries’ leaders try to preserve their own citizens’ rights to move freely through the bloc. The biggest immediate threat to European integration, however, is a migration crisis that has led a number of European leaders to warn in recent weeks that the union could unravel if it does not overcome acrimonious bickering among states.
Germany has taken the opposite position, arguing that it will not be possible to secure the bloc’s external boundaries, especially in Greece, without some control from Brussels. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, warned last month that the union must secure its external borders. “As we all know from the Roman Empire, big empires go down if the borders are not well protected,” said Mr. Rutte, whose country takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency in January.
The conflicting views pose a challenge for Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, which consists of the bloc’s national leaders. Such fears hung over the last scheduled summit meeting of this year, which will continue through Friday. Its main focus was how to get Greece and Italy to regain control of their coastlines before public services in Germany, the final destination of most asylum seekers, are overwhelmed and before the crisis further fuels populist anti-European political movements in Britain and elsewhere.
“Border protection is and should be in the first place the domain of national states,” Mr. Tusk told reporters before the summit meeting. “But Europe cannot remain vulnerable when Schengen states are not able to effectively protect their borders.” Reinforcing the bloc’s external borders is also a priority for France, since two of the participants in last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris posed as refugees to enter the European Union through Greece. Those terrorists moved undetected inside the bloc before carrying out attacks at the other end of the continent.
Mr. Tusk said he thought an agreement on Britain’s demands could be reached by February, but he warned that “some parts of the British proposal seem unacceptable.” Despite the gravity of the migration crisis, the European Union’s leadership is still trying to improvise solutions, and there was little sign that the 28 member countries would be able to reach a unified approach that would safeguard the Schengen rules cherished by many Europeans while limiting the arrival and movement of migrants at the outer edges of the bloc.
Meanwhile, the migrant crisis has continued to grow. About 1.2 million asylum seekers have arrived in the European Union since January, almost double the figure for 2014, according to official figures published this week. Though the onset of cold weather has recently reduced the number of migrants attempting the sea crossing to Greece, hundreds still do so every day. Most of the new arrivals are from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq, according to Frontex, a European agency that helps to oversee the bloc’s borders. Ahead of the meeting on Thursday, the bloc still appeared splintered as a limited group of European Union leaders — including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Chancellor Werner Faymann of Austria — met with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey to discuss a plan to resettle in Europe migrants now sheltering in Turkey.
That resettlement plan represents a concession to Turkey as it deals with the roughly 2.2 million migrants on its territory. Many migrants seeking to reach wealthier northern European countries leave from Turkey on boats for Greece.
The plan would be voluntary because the majority of European Union member states appear to be unwilling to take part and would apply only to a fraction of the migrants in Turkish camps.
European Union governments are still discussing ways to fund the money promised to Turkey in November to improve living conditions for migrants in Turkey so that they stay put instead of heading for Europe.
The arrangements with Turkey are under close scrutiny from groups like Amnesty International, a human rights organization, which has accused the Turkish authorities of abusing migrants. The group has called for a suspension of migration-related cooperation with Turkey.
An effort announced in May by the European Union authorities to relocate tens of thousands of people from Greece and Italy to other countries in the bloc has failed to gain much traction, with only 208 people moved so far.
With that plan stillborn, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, is pushing a new one to take control of border and coastal security at entry points for migrants in countries like Greece and Italy. But the new border system proposed this week could get bogged down in arduous procedures involving national governments and the European Parliament. That risks further highlighting the bloc’s seeming inability to respond rapidly to crises.
The border proposals already face opposition in countries like Poland, where some politicians suspect a blunt power grab by Brussels intended to diminish national sovereignty, even as leaders of those countries push to save the right of their own workers to move freely in the bloc.
Germany has taken the opposite position, arguing that protection of external borders, especially those in Greece, cannot be achieved without some form of command and control from Brussels.