As EU heads of state and government gather later this week in Brussels, the very issues of EU cohesion and national sovereignty that prompted the UK’s departure are returning—with a vengeance. After the failure of its voluntary quota system, the European Union has begun a new process toward imposing a uniform migration and asylum policy on Europe. This time, they are doing so in a way that threatens to override the objections of member states.
Earlier this month, the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs Council adopted draft legislation to force refugee resettlement on the very countries that are spending the most money to guard Europe’s borders. Since the interior ministers’ council operates by qualified majority, the EU was able to claim “victory”—over the objections of Hungary and Poland, and the abstentions of Bulgaria, Malta, Lithuania, and Slovakia.
When Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, the need for sovereignty over migration was an important question. “The numbers are too high,” Rishi Sunak told ITV News in May. “It’s as simple as that. And I want to bring them down.” Since then, the UK government has clamped down on asylum claims and contemplated “Stop the Boats” legislation.
But in Europe, the EU is working to remove the ability for countries to exercise this important right.
As the European Council convenes the continent’s premiers today and tomorrow, migration quotas will thus be at the forefront. For all its talk about the rule of law, the EU has originated the new rule outside the European Council, where European leaders could negotiate and come to a unanimous solution.
While the EU appears ready to circumvent the objections of Central and Eastern Europe, migration questions are far from settled. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer are also poised to raise these questions at this week’s meeting. At last week’s Europa-Forum Wachau, both premiers pointed to asylum reform as an urgent need for the European Council to address directly. Although both Meloni and Nehammer’s governments supported the draft legislation on resettlement, it is clear that their concerns are by no means exhausted. Asylum claims at the Italian border have already more than doubled over the same period last year.
Though Hungary and Poland have demurred on migrant quotas, they are hardly alone in taking exception to European legislation. Both Germany and France have recently stood in the way of EU legislation on climate change and renewable energy. In essence, EU wants to shift toward the qualified majority system in order to paper over fundamental differences with the appearance of “collective decision-making.”
But this approach is already backfiring. The EU’s change of procedure for bringing about the new quota system marks a significant departure from the norm, portending an even more federal vision of the European future. And it shows that the European Union is ready to give up on obtaining the consent of its member states in its most important decisions.
Knowing that it would be impossible to advance this proposal by unanimous agreement among member states, EU leaders began the process among the EU’s interior ministers, where unanimity is not required. That way, the proposal can get off the ground without agreement among all states. The proposal will now go to the European Parliament and European Commission, where it could become binding over the will of objecting states.
In practice, the burden of the new proposal won’t fall on the states that supported it, but on those that did not. Despite the appearance of consensus, the proposal would remove a fundamental competency of member states.
Under the language of “solidarity,” the EU will require member states to absorb migrants or pay a fine of €22,000 in each case of refusal to do so. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has already stated that Poland will not comply with the fines, and there is talk of holding a national referendum to coincide with Poland’s elections.
Objections from Poland and Hungary are not designed to stop other European countries from having their own national policies. Speaking to Hungarian radio, Viktor Orbán stated, “We simply want to say that the Germans should be right in Germany, and let the Hungarians be right in Hungary. . . . We don’t want to experiment with it.”
At the same time that the EU wants to impose these fines, Hungary has spent more than 1.5 billion euros of its own money on guarding Europe’s southeastern border. According to the Hungarian police, Hungary prevented 122,000 illegal border crossings in 2021, 270,000 in 2022, and over 50,000 thus far in 2023. In effect, Hungary will be punished for its success in stopping migration. It paid to fulfill its border protection obligation, but now will be forced to accept migrants anyway.
In the meantime, the European Commission has requested a €15 billion top-up to the EU’s budget in migration management—a drop in the bucket compared to the overall costs to the continent.
If the new measures receive final approval, they will establish a migration and asylum system far more federal than even that of the United States—but without ‘federal’ support for border protection. In the U.S., the federal government controls America’s external borders. But when Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida relocated migrants to Washington, D.C., and Martha’s Vineyard, they were met with howls of outrage from America’s coastal elites.
The new procedure would also make a mockery of Europe’s own Schengen system. It’s possible to have free movement within the European Union, or to have mandatory relocations—but not both.
According to the EU, the new regulation somehow “discourages secondary movements” by migrants. But this expectation is naive. If there’s one thing we have learned from watching migrant movements in recent years, it’s that migrants will go where they will go.
Last year alone, more than 45,000 migrants crossed the English Channel—for many, their second dangerous crossing, having crossed the Mediterranean as well. For migrants determined to reach a particular destination, resettlement is likely to be only a temporary delay.
Over the last decade, the concept of asylum has stretched to include almost every form of migrant movement. What was once a rare, extralegal category for those genuinely fleeing impossible situations has become a new method for justifying mass population movements—and, sadly, for enabling smugglers, as well.
In Hungary’s case, there is no question where the country stands. In a 2016 referendum, 98.4% of voters rejected the possibility that the European Union could resettle migrants in the country without parliamentary consent.
For all its talk of rule of law and democracy, the EU appears determined to ‘fix’ its broken migration system by politically punishing the very countries that have done the most to prevent the problem. Later this week, we’ll find out how European leaders who disagree with this process intend to push back.
A New Migration Fight is Looming in Europe
As EU heads of state and government gather later this week in Brussels, the very issues of EU cohesion and national sovereignty that prompted the UK’s departure are returning—with a vengeance. After the failure of its voluntary quota system, the European Union has begun a new process toward imposing a uniform migration and asylum policy on Europe. This time, they are doing so in a way that threatens to override the objections of member states.
Earlier this month, the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs Council adopted draft legislation to force refugee resettlement on the very countries that are spending the most money to guard Europe’s borders. Since the interior ministers’ council operates by qualified majority, the EU was able to claim “victory”—over the objections of Hungary and Poland, and the abstentions of Bulgaria, Malta, Lithuania, and Slovakia.
When Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, the need for sovereignty over migration was an important question. “The numbers are too high,” Rishi Sunak told ITV News in May. “It’s as simple as that. And I want to bring them down.” Since then, the UK government has clamped down on asylum claims and contemplated “Stop the Boats” legislation.
But in Europe, the EU is working to remove the ability for countries to exercise this important right.
As the European Council convenes the continent’s premiers today and tomorrow, migration quotas will thus be at the forefront. For all its talk about the rule of law, the EU has originated the new rule outside the European Council, where European leaders could negotiate and come to a unanimous solution.
While the EU appears ready to circumvent the objections of Central and Eastern Europe, migration questions are far from settled. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer are also poised to raise these questions at this week’s meeting. At last week’s Europa-Forum Wachau, both premiers pointed to asylum reform as an urgent need for the European Council to address directly. Although both Meloni and Nehammer’s governments supported the draft legislation on resettlement, it is clear that their concerns are by no means exhausted. Asylum claims at the Italian border have already more than doubled over the same period last year.
Though Hungary and Poland have demurred on migrant quotas, they are hardly alone in taking exception to European legislation. Both Germany and France have recently stood in the way of EU legislation on climate change and renewable energy. In essence, EU wants to shift toward the qualified majority system in order to paper over fundamental differences with the appearance of “collective decision-making.”
But this approach is already backfiring. The EU’s change of procedure for bringing about the new quota system marks a significant departure from the norm, portending an even more federal vision of the European future. And it shows that the European Union is ready to give up on obtaining the consent of its member states in its most important decisions.
Knowing that it would be impossible to advance this proposal by unanimous agreement among member states, EU leaders began the process among the EU’s interior ministers, where unanimity is not required. That way, the proposal can get off the ground without agreement among all states. The proposal will now go to the European Parliament and European Commission, where it could become binding over the will of objecting states.
In practice, the burden of the new proposal won’t fall on the states that supported it, but on those that did not. Despite the appearance of consensus, the proposal would remove a fundamental competency of member states.
Under the language of “solidarity,” the EU will require member states to absorb migrants or pay a fine of €22,000 in each case of refusal to do so. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has already stated that Poland will not comply with the fines, and there is talk of holding a national referendum to coincide with Poland’s elections.
Objections from Poland and Hungary are not designed to stop other European countries from having their own national policies. Speaking to Hungarian radio, Viktor Orbán stated, “We simply want to say that the Germans should be right in Germany, and let the Hungarians be right in Hungary. . . . We don’t want to experiment with it.”
At the same time that the EU wants to impose these fines, Hungary has spent more than 1.5 billion euros of its own money on guarding Europe’s southeastern border. According to the Hungarian police, Hungary prevented 122,000 illegal border crossings in 2021, 270,000 in 2022, and over 50,000 thus far in 2023. In effect, Hungary will be punished for its success in stopping migration. It paid to fulfill its border protection obligation, but now will be forced to accept migrants anyway.
In the meantime, the European Commission has requested a €15 billion top-up to the EU’s budget in migration management—a drop in the bucket compared to the overall costs to the continent.
If the new measures receive final approval, they will establish a migration and asylum system far more federal than even that of the United States—but without ‘federal’ support for border protection. In the U.S., the federal government controls America’s external borders. But when Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida relocated migrants to Washington, D.C., and Martha’s Vineyard, they were met with howls of outrage from America’s coastal elites.
The new procedure would also make a mockery of Europe’s own Schengen system. It’s possible to have free movement within the European Union, or to have mandatory relocations—but not both.
According to the EU, the new regulation somehow “discourages secondary movements” by migrants. But this expectation is naive. If there’s one thing we have learned from watching migrant movements in recent years, it’s that migrants will go where they will go.
Last year alone, more than 45,000 migrants crossed the English Channel—for many, their second dangerous crossing, having crossed the Mediterranean as well. For migrants determined to reach a particular destination, resettlement is likely to be only a temporary delay.
Over the last decade, the concept of asylum has stretched to include almost every form of migrant movement. What was once a rare, extralegal category for those genuinely fleeing impossible situations has become a new method for justifying mass population movements—and, sadly, for enabling smugglers, as well.
In Hungary’s case, there is no question where the country stands. In a 2016 referendum, 98.4% of voters rejected the possibility that the European Union could resettle migrants in the country without parliamentary consent.
For all its talk of rule of law and democracy, the EU appears determined to ‘fix’ its broken migration system by politically punishing the very countries that have done the most to prevent the problem. Later this week, we’ll find out how European leaders who disagree with this process intend to push back.
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