Three weeks before the European elections, organized from June 6 to 9, the migration issue is coming back to the forefront. Not in meetings or because of an influx of migrants on the shores of the European Union (EU). But through a letter, co-signed by fifteen countries, which requests a new turn of the screw, barely three days after the final adoption by the Twenty-Seven of the asylum and migration pact, negotiated for more than eight years. Never before has a majority of Member States put forward such radical ideas in terms of managing migration policy as those appearing in this text.
In this missive sent on May 15 to the European Commission, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic , Cyprus and Malta are demanding from the European executive, which will be renewed following the elections, “to identify, develop and propose new means and new solutions to prevent irregular immigration in Europe”.
While 380,000 migrants entered Europe irregularly in 2023 and just over a million people applied for asylum, the signatory states believe that the European system is now ” unsustainable “. This This assessment is contested by specialists on the issue, NGOs or the UN, when all the countries of Africa and the Middle East are welcoming many more refugees on their territory.
The European People’s Party (EPP), which brings together the conservative right, has supported since January the idea of outsourcing asylum seekers to so-called “safe” third countries, partly inspired by the law adopted in the United Kingdom to to move asylum seekers to Rwanda. The fifteen signatories make more or less the same proposal. However, their governments include a great diversity of political parties.
” Go off the beaten track “
Some come from the far right, like that of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, others are led by social democrats, like in Denmark and Romania, by conservatives like in Austria, Poland, Finland and Greece, or by the liberals, as in Estonia and – as far as the outgoing government is concerned – in the Netherlands.
France, Germany, Sweden and Slovakia, which followed the discussions initiated by the Danish government, ultimately did not sign the letter. Stockholm refused following a disagreement within its coalition, while French President Emmanuel Macron prioritized the implementation of the pact and external cooperation agreements. The German government is on the same line, at a time when the future Dutch coalition, being formed under the leadership of far-right leader Geert Wilders, is demanding the right for the Netherlands to withdraw from migration policy. community.
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