A “vast majority” of countries are open to a political declaration that includes the principle of voluntary relocation, according to France
BRUSSELS, June 10 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The interior ministers of the European Union are trying this Friday to agree on the basic principles for solidarity and shared responsibility in the matter of receiving refugees that will allow unblocking the common immigration reform -stalled for years due to the differences between the partners-, during a meeting in Luxembourg upon arrival of which the Spanish minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, considered it possible to achieve a “minimum agreement”.
“I believe that today we will be able to offer an important vision of consensus,” Grande-Marlaska told the press upon arrival at the meeting in Luxembourg, after explaining that the objective of this meeting is to agree on a political declaration that includes the principle of “solidarity ” in the relocation of migrants arriving in the countries on the front line of entry to the EU.
The rotating presidency of the EU that concludes this June France is working on a declaration that can add a “vast majority” of support among the EU countries, aware that there is not the necessary consensus in the bloc to adopt a text to Twenty-seven , which advocates compulsory solidarity between partners, with the option for governments to choose between “voluntary relocation” or financial support for countries that bear the burden of hosting.
Marlaska has highlighted the “progress” that has been achieved during the six-month period of the French presidency in the EU after years of hiatus in immigration reform and has attributed it to the “conjunction of two essential principles” such as shared responsibility and solidarity.
For this reason, the minister has considered that with “a few small details necessary” to pave the way towards consensus this Friday, it will be possible for a “minimum agreement” to be endorsed even at the level of Twenty-seven.
Also upon arrival at the meeting of ministers, the head of the French Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has been “reasonably optimistic” regarding the prospect of an agreement this Friday on the political declaration that defines the balance between solidarity and responsibility between partners, which until now has divided the southern countries that demanded a redistribution of reception and the less exposed countries that refuse to receive migrants who have arrived in other EU countries.
In the perspective of unblocking it also helps, according to the French minister, the consensus that he also hopes to adopt two pieces of the reform whose negotiation has been separated because it is easier to negotiate: the regulation on the common biometric database (Eurodac) and the so-called ‘screening’ to register and be able to reject at the external border migrants who represent a threat to the security of the EU.
Darmanin has affirmed that there is already a “vast majority of countries that are very favorable” to the agreement on these three texts, including on the idea of ??”compulsory solidarity” within which each member can choose between the relocation of people or another form of ” financial or human solidarity”, in reference to supporting with funds or additional means the countries that assume the reception.
The mechanism to relocate in a more agile way among the partners migrants who arrive en masse in times of crisis to one or several countries of the bloc will be “voluntary” and already has the support of “a dozen” member States, has said Darmanin, without clarifying which ones.
In this context, the Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, has expressed the opinion that the agreement in Luxembourg was possible, although she has warned that “it is not done yet”, for which reason she has appealed for caution before taking it for granted, time that has stressed that the solidarity response to the arrival of refugees from Ukraine must also be given to the arrival of refugees who arrive in the EU “from other places.
