Immigration to dominate EU summit
The challenge posed by Europe’s ongoing immigration situation will be top of the agenda when leaders of the European Union’s member states meet for a two-day summit in Brussels later this week.
In his invitation letter, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, warned them that the debate was becoming “increasingly heated” and a continued failure to face up to the task and deal with it effectively was handing the political initiative to populist groups with a “tendency toward overt authoritarianism”.
“The stakes are very high. And time is short,” he added.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, an enthusiastic champion of welcoming refugees, is under pressure at home with her coalition government looking increasingly vulnerable. She has told the German parliament that the immigration issue could end up being a defining moment for the EU.
France has shown little enthusiasm to get more involved. Three years ago, thethen French government promised to take 30,000 refugees off the hands of Italy and Greece, the frontline countries when it comes to immigration, but 12 months later, only around 1,000 had entered the country, and current President Emmanuel Macron seems to regard European economic integration as a higher priority.
Italy’s position in the Mediterranean means it is the desired destination and arrival point of many migrants from Africa and the Middle East, which has made the matter a huge domestic political issue, coinciding with the electoral success of the Eurosceptic Five Star movement and right-wing party the League.
As a result, Italy wants other EU countries to share more of the burden of dealing with people who have already arrived, and prevent more making the journey, but this is unlikely to prove popular with populist governments in eastern and central Europe, most notably in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party have promoted openly hostile immigration policies.
In his final speech before April’s parliamentary elections, Orban said: “If the levy breaks, if they open the borders, if migrants enter the country, there is no way back.”
Orban will feel further emboldened by the fact Austria holds the rotating EU presidency for the next six months and its Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has also taken a hard line on immigration.