To analyse. It was a risky bet: on the eve of the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron had indicated that two of the priorities of the French Presidency of the European Union (PFUE) would be to reform the Schengen passport-free area and to make progress towards the adoption of a European “migration pact”. Two distinct themes at the start, but which the news of recent years and the tensions it has generated have made inseparable: free movement and migration now fuel the same fears. The issues of access to territory and migration policy have therefore become inseparable.
Steering and “political governance” of Schengen, reinforced border controls with, as corollaries, “responsibility and solidarity” mandatory between Twenty-Seven: French ambition is great but does not erase the pitfalls. In Brussels, the priorities displayed by Paris have an air of deja vu and one wonders, beyond the speeches and the promises, on what France will really obtain by June 30, deadline of a PFUE which will, moreover, be eclipsed by the presidential election.
The obligation of solidarity
The European Commission tabled almost a year and a half ago a “global pact for migration” which is still bogged down, in particular because it carries the notion of “compulsory” solidarity. However, a large number of Member States still reject the idea of a fair sharing of the migratory “burden” and, in reality, the principle of welcoming new asylum seekers. As for the intention of the Commission, supported by Paris, to oblige recalcitrants to financially support their colleagues who, themselves, would assume their duty to welcome, it does not seem to have any echo in central Europe. or oriental. Who does not say a word does not always consent.
In Lille, February 3, Following an informal meeting of their European colleagues, the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, and the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, spoke of the progress made. In reality, these officials only approved the sequencing of an ever-difficult discussion. France and Germany, with a few rare supporters, advocate a coalition of “good wills” in order to organize the relocation and distribution of applicants who obtain the right to asylum, in accordance with international provisions. According to information from Worldthey were opposed to the birth of a club of so-called “reasonable” States, which brings together about fifteen members: those who admit with less and less complexes their refusal of any policy based on anything other than an almost integral of boundaries.
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