EU summit on refugee crisis ends in disarray

19/2/2016

By Stefan Wagstyl and Duncan Robinson in Brussels

Chancellor Angela Merkel hoped this week’s EU summit on migration would provide at least a show of European unity in the refugee crisis.

Instead, it ended in disarray. An Austrian plan to cap the entry of asylum-seekers at just 80 a day left the German leader isolated, Greece threatening to scupper any deal on Brexit in response, and leaders more divided than ever over the EU’s biggest challenge in decades.

European leaders, from Berlin to Vienna to Athens, are now improvising and pursuing often contradictory policies. Ms Merkel took even her own officials by surprise when she demanded another summit on the refugee crisis on March 6, just before three key German regional elections on March 13 and before the onset of spring boosts the numbers crossing the Aegean.

Refugee arrivals have picked up, with more than 4,800 arriving in Greece from Turkey on Thursday — a rate not far off the autumn peak, when an average of 7,000 people a day were arriving.

A backlog is building up along the western Balkans route, where fractious states have had to pull together to cope with the arrival of more than 1m people since the start of 2015. In private, previously optimistic officials are starting to despair, with worries shifting to a potential humanitarian disaster on the bloc’s south eastern border. An EU leader said: “It’s a serious situation.”

Ms Merkel is still banking on a deal with Ankara to secure the vulnerable Greek-Turkish frontier. As the chancellor said in the early hours on Friday: “It is an absolute given that we must urgently move faster.” But bad luck waylaid even this plan: Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu cancelled a planned trip to Brussels to discuss migration following a car-bomb attack in Ankara.

After the stormy summit debate, a tired looking Ms Merkel put a brave face on events at the 2.30am press conference, pointing to the efforts made in recent weeks to engage with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and boost Greece’s sea defences by deploying Nato ships.

Meanwhile, Vienna has been accused of trampling on international law, including the Geneva Convention on refugees, throwing already barely enforced rules on asylum into further doubt. “Conventions are like fairies — if you stop believing in them, they die,” said Elizabeth Collett, a director at the Migration Policy Institute.

However, the Austrian public backs its chancellor Werner Faymann’s migrant cap, with Der Standard newspaper on Friday defending him, saying that Brussels had scored “an own goal” by criticising Vienna. Ms Merkel, who rarely criticises EU partners in public, said that she had been “surprised” by Mr Faymann. Privately, German officials are furious that an old ally has broken ranks.

Brussels had desperately attempted to force member states to abide by the rules, with little success. Despite EU member states agreeing to share out 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece among themselves, fewer than 600 have actually been moved. While some leaders such as Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, have noisily disagreed, others — such as Madrid and Paris — have simply dragged their feet.

After his fellow leaders had spent hours admonishing the Austrians, Mr Orban praised the plan, declaring it “a good idea”. He has support. While Ms Merkel’s popularity has dwindled to levels not seen since the nadir of the eurozone crisis, Mr Orban remains popular and wins admiration among sceptics abroad, including in Germany.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93881f40-d725-11e5-829b-8564e7528e54.html#ixzz40iq8BIRs

If the EU has little leverage over its members, it has even less influence over those outside the union. The Turkey deal, involving €3bn in aid and other perks to Ankara in exchange for limiting the flow, has yet to trigger a drop in arrivals.

Not just the refugees’ fate but also the unity of the passport-free Schengen zone and even of the EU itself is at stake, as Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi pointed out. Commenting on a separate Austrian move to impose restrictions on the Brenner Pass, a crucial Alpine crossing, he said: “We cannot imagine closing the Brenner, which symbolically and not symbolically is one of the great elements of European unity.”

But Ms Merkel’s allies are dwindling. After an earlier retreat from efforts to have all 28 member states involved in taking refugees, and so reducing the burden on Germany, Sweden, Austria and a handful of others, she has in recent weeks put her faith in the so-called “coalition of the willing” countries that might take refugees under the right conditions — notably reducing the illegal inflow across the Aegean and replacing it with legal transfers direct from Turkey.

Even this idea is fraying. As Reinhold Mitterlehner, Austrian vice-chancellor, said: “Anyone can deduce that the coalition of the willing in this shape clearly no longer exists.”

Additional reporting by Jim Brunsden

Πηγή

Σχετική δημοσίευση εδώ.