Merkel pushes for ‘coalition of the willing’ in EU migration deal

Italy set high demands on Thursday for any European Union deal on migration, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel urgently needs to stave off a coalition crisis at home.

Arriving for what are certain to be fraught talks in Brussels, leaders of Spain, Greece, Finland and Luxembourg backed Mrs Merkel’s push to curtail “secondary migration” of people who arrive at the EU’s southern border and then head north to Germany across the bloc’s control-free travel zone.

But the Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, said he could block any agreement unless other EU states also agree to accept in their ports boats carrying people across the Mediterranean.

They will spar behind closed doors but attempt a show of unity in public, agreeing tougher new measures to stem arrivals from the Middle East and Africa to Europe in the first place.

“I suggest we focus on the EU’s external border, including the disembarkation platforms project,” said Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, of a new idea to set up sites around the Mediterranean where the EU would decide on asylum.

“The alternative to this solution would be a chaotically advancing closure of borders, also within the EU, as well as growing conflicts among EU member states,” he said, reminding bloc leaders that echoes of their failed response to a 2015 increase in sea arrivals was still feeding support for Eurosceptic, populist and anti-migration groups in the bloc.

Mrs Merkel has come under political pressure from hardline allies in Bavaria who are threatening to close their border to migrants if she is unable to work out a deal with European partners.

That could trigger the collapse of Mrs Merkel’s government and cause the EU’s Schengen free-travel zone to unravel, putting cross-border business, trade and many jobs among the EU’s 500 million people at risk.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said that European solidarity on migration was vital, “especially with Germany, which is now suffering a political crisis”.

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, said: “There are so many people who arrived in different countries and then made their way to Germany. I understand when Germany says ‘Why do we have to deal with everything?’”

Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and Finland’s Juha Sipila and diplomats from several other EU states also promised to work with Germany on the issue.

Mrs Merkel has called on European leaders to forge a common approach to migration.

“Europe faces many challenges, but that of migration could become the make-orbreak one for the EU,” she said. Her 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees divided Europe and continues to haunt her at home. “Now as then, I think that was the right thing to do,” she said on Thursday.

According to draft conclusions circulated before the two-day summit, the leaders will agree measures to strengthen Europe’s external borders, spend more on fighting illegal immigration and step up co-operation to prevent refugees and migrants from moving within the bloc.

They will give more money for Syrian refugees in Turkey and migration projects in Africa, as well as look at sealing a deal with Morocco to reverse a recent rise in arrivals in Spain.

But the EU remains deeply divided over how to handle asylum seekers, with the former communist east, led by Poland and Hungary, refusing to alleviate the burden on Italy and Greece.

A deal among all 28 EU states is unrealistic, so Mrs Merkel is pushing for a “coalition of the willing”. She hopes that will appease the Christian Social Union, which has hardened its line before an autumn election in its home region of Bavaria.

Convincing Italy to do a deal may be the biggest challenge. Its new government has rejected any moves that would make it handle more migrants.