The European Union has backed Poland‘s move to curb migration after Warsaw said it wanted to temporarily suspend the right to asylum. It comes amid fears Russia and Belarus want to push migrants across EU borders to foment chaos in the bloc.
EU leaders this week lauded a groundswell of support for tightening their borders and making the bloc a more hostile destination for migrants and asylum seekers after a recent surge in support for the far right, which has whipped up opposition to outsiders.
At the end of a summit dominated by migration, EU leaders pushed plans to speed up ways of getting migrants not eligible to stay in the EU out of the bloc and process asylum applications outside their borders, seeking to buttress a reputation as a “Fortress Europe”.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said: “Things are changing in the European Union. Now the majority of leaders are saying the same: that we cannot continue. The numbers are too high. We have to return those who should not be protected in Europe.”
She added: “A great number of Europeans are tired of us helping people from outside who commit crimes. Some are radicalised. It can’t go on like this. Therefore, there is a limit as to how many people we can help.”
European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said EU leaders had talked about the idea of developing “return hubs” outside the EU for those who have no right to remain.
She said the bloc should take lessons from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose deal with Albania sees that country hosting two centres where people intercepted in international waters heading for Italy can have their asylum applications processed.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who heads a government dominated by the party of far-right firebrand Geert Wilders, said: “We see that there is a different mood in Europe.”
The tenor of the debate is a far cry from 2015 when the EU was faced with a migration crisis. Well over a million migrants and refugees sought help then, mainly from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU’s dominant national leader at that time, famously said: “We can manage that.”
Now, EU leaders want to manage and seal off their borders more tightly, embracing initiatives which would have looked unacceptable just a few years ago.
In recent weeks, as well as Poland and Italy’s moves on migration, Germany has reinstated border controls — all measures heading in the same direction.
Poland’s measure though was an outlier in the debate and fuelled by Russia‘s war against EU ally Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron, said: “It is clearly migration manipulation to destabilize a country.”
Ms von der Leyen said: “These are hybrid attacks by state actors and therefore Poland and other member states need to be able to protect our union from these hybrid attacks. Same goes for Finland and the Baltic states.”
Overall though, member states appear determined to speed up plans which lay out rules for the 27 member countries to handle people trying to enter without authorization.
This ranges from how to screen them to establish whether they qualify for protection to deporting them if they’re not allowed to stay. The plans also set out a mechanism for burden-sharing, which has been rejected by Hungary and Poland.
With the far right surging in the EU parliamentary elections in June and in other polls in Germany and Austria since, migration remains a trigger issue for leaders.
While some 3.5 million migrants arrived legally in Europe in 2023, about one million others were on EU territory without permission.
Populist and far right parties have had success in pushing for tougher migration rules. After wins in German regional elections, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been under mounting pressure to act too.
The German leader said at the end of the summit: “One thing is clear: Irregular migration needs to be reduced.” He went on to warn the bloc needs to remain open for skilled migration to counter an ageing population and help boost a faltering economy.
Mr Scholz said: “It is true that not just everyone can come and stay and that we can choose who comes.” Ms Von der Leyen had called for “innovative” projects, such as Italy’s outsourcing of asylum applications to Albania.
The Dutch government is looking at Uganda to set up its outsourcing. He said: “These are innovative solutions that should in principle interest our colleagues here.”
But EU nations have for years been deeply divided over how to deal with migrants arriving irregularly in the bloc and how to share the effort to deal with them, making it likely that any decisive joint action will be many months in the making.