Steve Peers
Football
fans have long enjoyed playing the game of Fantasy Football, in which they
imagine what might happen if a particular grouping of players actually formed a
team. Equally, for the time being, aficionados of European Union politics can
play Fantasy Commission President, in which they imagine what might happen if
any of the particular candidates for Commission President nominated by the
European political party groupings got the job.
Of course, as discussed earlier on this blog, it remains to be seen whether, after the elections finish on May 25th,
the European Council would be willing to nominate the candidate of the
political party which gets the most seats for President, and what the European
Parliament (which has the power to ‘elect’ the President, based on the European
Council’s nomination) would do if it doesn’t. For the time being, though, this
attempt at a new process for selecting the Commission President has resulted in
the candidates announcing some of their policies, which allows us to compare those
policies.
To that end,
this post first summarises the candidates’ positions on immigration policy, and
then compares and assesses those policies. It should be recalled that some
European parties have not named a candidate for Commission President (the ECR
group including the British Conservatives, and the EFD group including UKIP), so
therefore for those parties there are no candidate’s policies to assess here.
Martin Schultz
Yesterday,
Martin Schultz, the candidate of the Party of European Socialists, announced his immigration policy. The main points of the policy are: saving the lives of
migrants; developing a common policy; positive migration management; applying
the principle of loyalty and solidarity; developing a rule-based system; and
setting out a long-term vision.
In
particular, he believes that countries like Malta, as well as some third
countries, bear a disproportionate share of the burden as regards migration
towards the European Union, and so ‘a European response is needed’. This
involves: coordinating national actions; communication with North African
partners about surveillance; exempting ship-masters from prosecution; respect
for fundamental rights and non-refoulement; and a strong Commission position as
regards evaluation and weaknesses at external borders.
As regards
asylum, recognition rates differ widely, and the Dublin system for allocation
of asylum-seekers is confusing courts. To address this, he wants to increase
resettlement (ie bringing refugees directly from states near their country of
origin), take the ‘relocation’ of the persons involved within the EU ‘to the
next level’, test the joint processing of applications, increase the
integration of refugees and improve the capacity of the European Asylum Support
Office, to ‘monitor the quality and consistency of asylum decisions’. He will
also keep the idea of temporary protection, a special system to deal with a
mass influx of persons fleeing persecution, on the table. The EU should develop
relationships with third countries focussed upon encouraging reforms, so as to
reduce the desire to migrate in the first place.
As for
migration, he wants a well-organised system, mentioning in particular the
importance of skills, migrant integration, and attracting university students
and researchers. He also wants to use
visa policy to encourage tourism.
Jean-Claude Juncker
The
candidate nominated by the European People’s Party has set out a five-pointplan on migration. First, he wants to implement the Common European Asylum
System legislation without delay, in order to reduce the wide gap in
recognition rates between Member States. Second, he wants to increase the
powers of the European Asylum Support Office, as regards risk assessments and
tailored training for national administrations. Third, he wants the EU to help
address the root causes of migration, in the countries of origin. Fourth, to
reduce irregular migration and address demographic problems, he wants to
address legal migration, in particular by re-examining the ‘Blue Card’ rules on
highly-skilled migration. Finally, he wants to secure the EU’s borders, by
boosting Frontex (the EU’s border agency) and applying EU rules on punishing
traffickers of persons.
Alexis Tsipras
The candidate
of the European Left party set out some immigration policy positions in his declaration of acceptance of his candidacy. He also wants to support countries of
origin, to rescue migrants on the open sea, to create reception centres, and to
rethink the EU framework, in particular changing the Dublin rules on allocation
of responsibility for asylum-seekers.
Ska Keller and Jose Bove
There is no immigration
policy position paper as such for the Green Party candidates for Commission President
(or at least, none that can easily be found on the Internet). However, an
indication of their policy can be found in Ska Keller’s YouTube video. She
also criticises the EU’s Dublin system because of its impact on human rights
and burden-sharing for small countries, and calls for fairer asylum procedures,
the issue of humanitarian visas to would-be refugees and legal access for
economic migrants.
Guy Verhofstadt
Finally, the
Liberal party candidate only briefly mentions migration policy in his Plan for Europe (note: this is a difficult document to download, and it mostly
consists of diagrams). The single paragraph on this issue mentions the
importance of burden-sharing and managing legal migration.
Comparing the policies
Interestingly,
the Socialist and EPP positions have much in common. Both support cooperation with
countries of origin, suggest a plan for legal migration, and wish to reduce the
gaps in refugee recognition rates by strengthening the European Asylum Support
Office. But there are nuances between them: Juncker wants the office to be more
involved in risk assessments and tailored training, while Schultz wants it to
monitor Member States’ implementation of EU law. However, Juncker does refer to
the importance of implementation of EU asylum law generally. Schultz has further
policies relating to sharing asylum burdens, as regards resettlement, relocation,
temporary protection and joint processing. It might be deduced that neither
candidate is calling for amending the Dublin rules on allocation of
responsibility for asylum-seekers.
As for legal
migration, Juncker is more specific, calling for review of the specific rules
on admission of highly-skilled workers, while Schultz sets out a longer list of
objectives but without offering as much detail.
Juncker lays
greater stress on controlling external borders, in particular as regards
strengthening Frontex and prosecuting traffickers, while Schultz stresses
exempting ship captains from prosecution, Commission supervision and respect
for fundamental rights.
The Green
and European Left candidates’ positions have in common a demand for an overhaul
of the EU’s Dublin system. For its part, the Green candidate specifically
mentions the issue of humanitarian visas as a possible solution to the problem of
safe access to the European Union, and (like Martin Schultz) suggests that
there should be more avenues for legal migration, without setting out further details.
Unfortunately,
the Verhofstadt policy on immigration is too brief to compare it meaningfully
with the others, or to assess it.
Assessing the policies
There is a
clear divide between the two bigger parties’ candidates’ implicit positions on
the Dublin system of allocating asylum-seekers, and the explicit attack on that
system by the Green and Left candidates. While there is certainly much to be
said for scrapping the Dublin system entirely or profoundly reforming it, this solution
is probably not politically realistic as there is a significant majority of
Member States against it, and there would probably not be a majority in favour
in the European Parliament either.
So if we are
stuck with the Dublin system, what can be done to alleviate the problems arising
from its operation? As between the two big parties’ candidates, Juncker’s specific
suggestions for a bigger role for the European Asylum Support Office would not
do much to alleviate those problems. However, his greater focus on ensuring
timely and correct implementation of the second-phase Common European Asylum
System might well have that effect – if, by that, he means a new Commission
policy devoted to bringing infringement actions more aggressively against
Member States.
Schultz’s policies
would alleviate the problems with the system via the indirect route of greater
relocation, joint processing and resettlement. However, he does not offer many
details of such policies, and notably he is only promising to ‘test’ joint
processing. As regards relocation of refugees between Member States, it is
necessary to have a legal framework for transfer of protection, but he does not
mention this expressly. But on the whole, if these policies are pursued
vigorously, they might alleviate the effect of the system somewhat.
So would the
suggestion to make greater use of the issue of humanitarian visas, as suggested
by Ska Keller. She is right to say that this is an existing possibility; in
fact, this possibility was discussed previously on this blog.
Of course,
the various suggestions to alleviate the effect of the Dublin system could be combined
with each other. If so, the total impact would surely be greater than if only
one of the candidates’ suggestions were adopted.
The bigger
parties’ candidates’ willingness to engage with third countries is fine if it
concerns solely issues such as improvements in their economy and levels of
human rights protection. It would be more problematic if it involved third
States as remote controllers of EU borders, as long as many of the States in question
have questionable human rights records.
As for legal
migration, there are already proposals under discussion to amend the EU rules
on admission of students and researchers, and to amend EU visa policy
to encourage more tourists. So in that respect Schultz is simply supporting
legislation that has already been proposed. Juncker’s idea of reforming EU
rules to admit more highly-skilled migrants makes sense, but that is likely to
have only a modest impact in reducing the numbers who might be inclined to come
to the EU by irregular (‘illegal’) means.
Finally, as
regards irregular migration, it is striking that Juncker lays more stress on
increasing control, Schultz lays more stress on Commission evaluation and the
other two candidates lay more stress on saving lives. While Schultz also
mentions the importance of human rights in this context, he does not link that
with the Commission’s evaluation role. On this point, while there are many good
examples of Member States saving hundreds of lives at sea, there are also some
bad examples of push-backs or other appalling treatment of migrants at borders.
The Commission’s failure to respond to the latter cases has likely given Member
States the idea that they can act with impunity.
Conclusions
This is the
first time that the policy platforms of individual candidates for Commission
President could be compared and assessed before citizens cast a vote for the European
Parliament. In 2009, Barroso only produced a policy platform after he was nominated
for the job by the European Council – and even that was a development compared
to previous practice. The possibility to produce such an analysis, and for the candidates
to debate, campaign on and answer public questions regarding immigration (and other)
policies, shows the capacity of this new system of advance nominations to
improve the democratic functioning of the European Union.
It is, of
course, doubtful whether much of this debate has resonated with the general
public. And as noted at the outset, it remains to be seen whether the European
Council will accept the result of the process at the end of the day. But even
if it does not (and the European Parliament accedes to a ‘backroom deal’ on
appointment of the Commission President), the process of developing and
debating policy might still be relevant when it comes to the Parliament obtaining
policy commitments from the next Commission and the next Home Affairs Commissioner
on these important issues.
Barnard
& Peers: chapter 3, chapter 26
No comments:
Post a Comment