Commission to push forward ‘migration pact’ after refugee camp fire

EU will aid Greece with new ‘reception center’ and Commission will push forward plan for policy overhaul.

Press play to listen to this article

Voiced by Amazon Polly

The European Commission will next week present a long-delayed plan to overhaul EU migration and asylum policy, with new urgency created by the fire that destroyed the Moria refugee camp in Greece, President Ursula von der Leyen said.

Von der Leyen's announcement, at a news conference Monday following a videoconference with Chinese President Xi Jinping, reflected the increasing pressure felt by EU leaders after the fire, which left more than 12,000 refugees without shelter.

The Commission had been planning to unveil its new "migration pact" on September 30. But von der Leyen said the announcement would now come next week, days after her first State of the Union speech. Numerous attempts to overhaul EU asylum policy have failed since the height of the migration and asylum crisis of 2015, largely because of a deadlock over proposals for a system of compulsory relocation of asylum-seekers across the bloc.

"We have decided to bring the migration pact forward to next week, 23 September, and to speed up the discussion on the migration pact," von der Leyen said. "We are very grateful that the German presidency of the Council is helping us enormously here."

At the same news conference on Monday afternoon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced her support for a proposal by Greece to replace the destroyed Moria camp with a new "reception and identification" center. The Moria camp, on the island of Lesvos, was long a source of outrage because of overcrowded and fetid conditions in which refugees had languished for years.

On Sunday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis put forward plans for the reception center and called for help from other EU countries. Merkel said Germany, for one, was on board.

"Germany is ready to support the construction of a new reception center for refugees on [Lesvos]," Merkel said. "I was in contact with the Greek prime minister and the president of the Commission. The Greek side has expressed the opinion, which I very much support, that such a project can no longer be carried out under Greek responsibility alone, but also on a European level."

Merkel said that Greece would have primary responsibility but that the project could be a model for future EU-wide cooperation. "Exactly how this can be done — that would be a pilot project that needs to be considered, because of course sovereignty first lies with Greece and you have to have a treaty that can then really be acted upon at European level," Merkel said. "I think that would be a really important step on the way to a more Europeanized migration policy."

Earlier on Monday, Merkel told the national board of her governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party that she wants EU agencies to directly handle asylum requests in the Moria camp in order to speed up the process that decides whether an applicant has the right to stay in the EU, according to a participant at the meeting.

She did not repeat that demand at the press conference, but she acknowledged the EU's obligation to do better.

"We need to build a reception center that meets the standards," she said. "The situation in Moria was not acceptable. We have all known this for quite some time — the Greek prime minister has already brought 12,000 refugees to the mainland — but the situation must improve qualitatively. And then the question is: How can we support Greece as an external border state, a state that has taken on a lot of responsibility?"

Von der Leyen said the Commission was prepared to help set up the reception center.

"In the last few days, we have been jointly considering that such a refugee camp could be co-run by the Greek authorities and, if necessary, by the agencies of the European Commission," von der Leyen said. "Here it is very important that we clarify how the competences, the responsibilities, the possibilities are for each side. This means that we will have to make arrangements with each other, under contractual conditions — a memorandum of understanding — to deal with such matters."

And she said that the idea would move forward in conjunction with the Commission's plans for a new migration pact — though approval of that plan by the EU's 27 heads of state and government is far from assured.

"For us, it is important that such a pilot project, such an idea of a common European and in this case Greek leadership of such a refugee camp is closely linked to the considerations in the new migration pact, which must then be implemented,” she said.

According to some officials, the new schedule is actually an old schedule: the migration pact was initially foreseen for September 23, then postponed a week to September 30 in order not to avoid a European Council summit on September 24, where the official agenda is focused on Turkey and the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“The idea was not to have it on the table of the leaders,” one official said. But the arson fire that destroyed the camp and left thousands without shelter made such a discussion among leaders unavoidable, officials said.

The new migration pact is expected to touch all the key issues in migration, from the procedure that asylum seekers will follow at the border where they arrive, including a stronger role for EU agencies, to the aspect of responsibility — meaning whether countries of first arrival have must remain responsible for asylum claims, as is currently the case, and for how long. Mediterranean coastal countries have long complained this puts an excessive burden on them.

Another hot issue to be addressed is the potential redistribution of asylum seekers across the EU — perhaps a voluntary process as eastern countries like Hungary have long demanded, but perhaps also with a mandatory component if arrivals reach a certain level, as frontline nations such as Italy have sought.

For some diplomats, the fire in Moria has made it easier for the Commission to build momentum for the migration pact. "They seem keener to show solidarity,” a diplomat said. Others, however, were less optimistic, pointing to the fact that as soon as the fire in Moria is overtaken by the coronavirus pandemic or by other events, then the window of opportunity will shut again.