EU migration reform: Why is there so little progress?

European Parliamentarians gathered in the French city of Strasbourg this week and weighed into one of the EU's thorniest topics. They don't see eye-to-eye on how to manage migration, as was on show in a debate in plenary on Wednesday.

For years, the European Union (EU) has been trying to reform its joint asylum and migration system. Finally on the table is a package containing several legislative proposals that foresee, among other things, faster processing of asylum claims at external borders and a more binding distribution of refugees within the EU.

Path clear for negotiations

At present, the new EU Migration Pact as the plan is known, is up for negotiations between the European Commission, representatives of the EU member states and the European Parliament. All three must ultimately sign off the deal.

But progress had been snarled by disagreement among the member states until Wednesday, when Spain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, announced a breakthrough. This paves the way for talks with the European Parliament to begin again.

With that in mind, German center-left lawmaker Gabriele Bischoff said the legislature's goal was to conduct negotiations in a tough manner and, above all, not to call into question the fundamental right to asylum. At the same time, the Social Democrat (SPD) politician called for finding common solutions and not succumbing to the "poison of populism."

Her compatriot Manfred Weber, leader of the center-right European People's Party (the largest group in the European Parliament), stressed that this reform package was perhaps the biggest and most important in the current legislative period, which ends next year.

"If we don't succeed, it will offer populists room for growth," the prominent conservative of Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU) party told the chamber.

Taking the wind from sails of far-right

Far-right and right-wing parties frequently accuse the EU of failing to tackle illegal immigration. Wednesday's debate in the European Parliament was no exception.

Marco Zanni, an Italian member of the right-wing populist Lega party and leader of the far-right Identity and Democracy group, said that absolutely nothing had changed in the ten years since more than 300 people died in a shocking boat accident off Lampedusa, an Italian island. For Zanni, people must be stopped from setting off in the first place.

Philippe Lamberts, a Belgian politician and co-chair of the Greens in the European Parliament, sees things differently. The European Union had decided to become a fortress: "Now it is all about preventing departures, strengthening the borders, locking up those who arrive and doing it all in cooperation with autocratic dictators."

The EU has just signed a so-called partnership deal with Tunisia. Others, potentially with Morocco or Egypt, could follow.

EU: Solidarity on the line

In the European Parliament on Wednesday, the question of solidarity was raised again and again. At the root of discussions is the Dublin Regulation of EU asylum law, which holds the state where a refugee or migrant first sets foot on EU soil responsible for processing their claims. For years, the members states the bloc's external borders have been complained about the fairness of this system.

The new EU migration pact is supposed to introduce a mandatory distribution, or have states pay if they do not want to take in refugees. Hungary and Poland, extremely skeptical towards migration, reject this idea.

Polish EU lawmaker and former head of government Beata Szydlo, who belongs to the national-conservative ruling PiS party, told the chamber her country would never agree to take in illegal migrants. The proposal to make payments instead of taking in refugees is absurd, in her view.

At the end of the debate European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, emphasized the importance of solidarity among EU states. He said it was politically, legally and morally unjust to leave the five EU states with external borders alone to police frontiers. This is a joint task for the EU, he said.

Brussels and Strasbourg know that they are under  pressure: There is a broad consensus that the reform package must be wrapped up by the EU elections in June 2024.

This article was adapted from German.