UK-EU asylum "row": smoke and mirrors?

The British press' preview of today and tomorrow's summit has been partly dominated by an expected "row" between Cameron and the EU over a Commission proposal to water down rules on asylum. The fact that this has been covered in almost every paper from The Sun to The Guardian suggests it is a story that the communications folks in Downing Street wanted us to read. The question is why?

The so-called Dublin Regulation allows member states to send failed asylum seekers back to their first country of arrival in the EU. However, the Commission is pushing to be given the power to invoke a suspension clause to prevent people being sent back to certain countries if they are under "exceptional pressures" from a mass influx of migrants, for example.

These are ongoing negotiations on a proposal dating back to 2008, to which the previous government opted in. The current Home Secretary Theresa May said a couple of months ago that, "We oppose the suspension of transfers under the Dublin regulation." The Labour Government said it was "concerned" about the Commission's suspension clause at the time of opting in but did so anyway, presumably hoping it would be removed during negotiations.

When Downing Street talks up such a "row", it is usually fair to expect it to be followed by a "UK win" - the reports today suggest that Cameron has won French backing for his position. And with EU leaders, at the very same summit, set to discuss a tightening up of the border-free Schengen zone after recent influxes of immigrants from North Africa, it would be miraculous indeed if at the same time they decided to relax rules on asylum seekers.

This is not to say this isn't an issue because the Government could in theory be outvoted as the decision will be taken by QMV (exactly the kind of reason we have been advocating stronger parliamentary scrutiny of opt-in decisions). But what other motives might there be for talking up a UK victory in Europe?

Could it be that Downing Street would rather we didn't focus on another story perhaps? The Guardian reports today on something that could prove far more explosive for the Government. It quotes German officials saying that the UK will need to contribute to the second Greek bailout, over and above its IMF contributions, through the EFSF, for which the UK is partly liable.

"The German legal situation is clear," a German official said. "The EFSM should contribute." Asked whether the UK could veto such a move obliging it to guarantee billions for Greece, the official answered: "I don't understand the question because the decision is taken by qualified majority vote…Everyone is tied to a QMV decision."

The Guardian probably got a bit carried away, as we would be very surprised if the EFSM is activated for a second Greek bail-out (much will depend on how much EU leaders can squeeze out of private creditors under any bail-out plan. Absent private sector involvement - or at least the appearance of it - there's still a risk that the EFSM will have to pick up some of the slack. There's €11.5bn left in the fund). What is true is that the second Greek bailout is still very much an open game, with the theoretical risk of the activation of the EFSM or otherwise still being decided by a majority vote. But this would create a lot of bad blood. For nearly two weeks now Cameron has been saying the EFSM will not be used but, which leads Tory MEP Dan Hannan to suggest that it is in fact the spat over the ESFM that is the fake row.

In any case, this summit might not give us a whole lot of answers. We'll know for sure by 11th July, when EU finance ministers will meet to hammer out the exact details of the second Greek bail-out.

Italy is testing the limits of EU integration

Italy's Lega Nord has probably been dreaming of this moment for years: a head-on European collision over immigration, with Italy pitted against the Commission and other EU governments. The 20,000 North African migrants stranded on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa provided Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni (from Lega Nord, see picture) with an"opportunity" to make a point that he hardly would miss out on.

Speaking after yesterday's heated meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg - where Italy found itself completely isolated with only Malta on its side - Maroni launched a full-scale attack on virtually everyone. He said that the EU is

"an institution which takes action quickly only to bail-out banks and declare wars, but when it comes to showing concrete solidarity to a country like Italy, then [the EU] hides itself...I wonder if it really makes sense [for Italy] to remain part of the EU."

Ouch!

Italy isn't in any way contemplating leaving the EU of course, so Maroni is engaging in political posturing. This is obviously a hugely sensitive issue, but Maroni needs to chill a bit. It's not like Italy has completely been left hanging, as Maroni seems to suggest. This year, the country receives roughly €140 million in EU funding aimed at tackling various migration-related issues. In addition, it hasn't exactly used the billions it has recieved in EU structural funding in the most effective way - Italy's south is probably the biggest bottomless pit for EU funding. Instead of wasting it, this money could be used to deal with social exclusion and create more jobs for migrants. Call it "concrete solidarity" with European taxpayers.

But there's lots more to this story, and Italy does have a point, in so far as the distribution of migrants across Europe is hugely uneven (though this doesn't only apply to southern Europe. Finland took in 700 asylum seekers in 2010 for example, whereas its neighbour Sweden last year accepted close to 30,000 of them, which alongside Malta, is the most per capita in Europe). This is to say that if the wave of migrants from North Africa continues, and intensifies, the European Commission, and the member states that support this agenda, has been given a pretty strong hook for pushing a common EU immigration policy, including "burden sharing" between member states. Writing in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, the EU's genial Home Affairs Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, recently argued that, in the light of recent events in the EU's Southern neighbourhood,

“The need for a common EU policy on asylum and immigration is urgent...I hope that the current situation also contributes to the EU taking several steps forward towards a common asylum and immigration policy.”

For various reasons, Italy's clout in Europe has been seriously reduced recently - the country is unlikely to emerge as winners from this recent spat. However, calls for a common EU immigration policy won't go away - whether we agree or disagree with it, it's hard to a find more controversial area to outsource to Brussels, so this is likely to drag on.

In fact, it's up there with cross-border bail-outs and EU-enforced austerity measures, as the top issue that really will test the limits of European integration.

one thing leads to another

There is a lot going on at the moment. But amid all the short term rows about the revised constitutional treaty, the EU institutions are chugging along merrily, doing their long-term integrationist 'thing'.

For example, today the Commission has put out its green paper on the Common European Asylum System. The BBC has a good summary.

It's a classic area where the EU is marching miles ahead of - and indeed maybe not even in the same direction as - public knowledge and public opinion.

We doubt that most journalists, never mind most voters, even know that the EU is trying to set up a Common European Asylum System. Nonetheless the press release blandly states that the "first phase" of the system (the first four bits of legislation) is now complete.

The four building blocks of the first stage of the Common European Asylum System are now in place: Regulation (EC) 343/2003 ("Dublin Regulation"), Directive 2003/9/EC ("Reception Conditions Directive,") Directive 2004/83/EC ("Qualification Directive") and Directive 85/2005/EC ("Asylum Procedures Directive").

These legislative instruments aim at establishing a level playing field: a system which guarantees to persons genuinely in need of protection access to a high level of protection under equivalent conditions in all Member States while at the same time dealing fairly and efficiently with those found not to be in need of protection.

Some of that was controversial enough. Remember when the Commission said during the 2005 election that what the tories were proposing was illegal under EU law? Or the Scandinavians’ objections to a "white list" of ineligible origin countries? But the really tricky bit is the next part:

The ultimate objective of the Common European Asylum System, as envisaged by the Hague Programme, consists in the establishment of a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for persons in need of international protection valid throughout the EU.

In particular:

There is a pressing need for increased solidarity in the area of asylum, so as to ensure that responsibility for processing asylum applications and granting protection in the EU is shared equitably.

Ah - "burden sharing" in other words.

bɜː(r)dɛn shɛə(r)ing , verb: "The point at which things always get tricky in the EU" (think emissions reductions, EU budget etc).

We're always pretty sceptical when people say that the EU will 'never' do such and such a thing. Generally speaking it always ends up doing it in the end. But can this idea really ever fly? Will countries in northern Europe really agree to accept more people to take the pressure off southern member states? Can this project survive exposure to public opinion?

Maybe, maybe not. Some of the suggestions might get through below the radar of public perception, like the suggestion for a "mechanism for the mutual recognition of national asylum decisions and the possibility of transfer of protection responsibilities." However others are likely to trigger a reaction, particularly the suggestion that "Intra-EU resettlement is an important way to pursue."

Asylum is a nice example of how one thing leads to another in the EU. As Richard Williams from ECRE says in the BBC piece: "Once you have a common area of freedom of movement, you have to have common rules and safeguards on who can and cannot come in," he says.

Funnily enough, we thought someone might say that.

Going forward the issue for the UK is that having got the bits of the Common System it likes (particularly Rome) will there now be pressure for a quid pro quo? What if the UK doesn't want to take part in phase two? Opting out of it all might ruffle some feathers, but the trouble with having an opt-in not a veto is that if we agree in principle at the start of the process, there is no way back if we don't like the outcome. Interesting times ahead.