After long hours of negotiations, EU leaders emerged from Thursday’s Council summit heralding a new age regarding migration.
Not only did Polish PM Donald Tusk—a favorite of Commission president Ursula von der Leyen—get what he wanted by successfully establishing a precedent to suspend the right to asylum for migrants used as pawns in the Kremlin’s ‘hybrid warfare’ against the EU, but the leaders’ final resolution also contains several measures against illegal migration that had been taboo to even talk about just a few months ago.
We wrote on Thursday about the “different atmosphere” in the debate on migration as leaders arrived at the summit, most of them determined to finally amend the EU’s faulty decade-long approach that failed to prevent illegal entries and to send back those with no grounds to stay.
The general shift among mainstream-led governments came almost overnight, but have no illusions; no capital came to its senses miraculously. It was a series of strong electoral showings by national conservative forces all across Europe that made others think about where they went wrong and what they needed to change to stay in power.
Nonetheless, the foundations have now been laid for a better tomorrow, even if there’s still a long way to go to see all these in practice.
An unprecedented precedent
Polish PM Donald Tusk played his cards well by announcing his decision to temporarily suspend migrants’ asylum rights just days before the summit. By not giving too much time for others to reflect on the legality of such a move under international law, he forced both EU leaders and institutions into a corner where the only remaining option was to stand by him against the extortion tactics of Russia and Belarus.
We explained the background of this ‘hybrid warfare’ in more depth before. In short, it’s the practice of ‘instrumentalizing’ the migration crisis by transporting Middle Eastern asylum seekers straight to the EU’s eastern borders with Russia and Belarus, leaving Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states overwhelmed and destabilized as a result. But now, these member states are given the freedom to combat this however they wish.
“Russia and Belarus, or any other country, cannot be allowed to abuse our values, including the right to asylum, to undermine our democracies,” the Council’s resolution reads, expressing “solidarity” with all member states affected by the practice. “Exceptional situations require appropriate measures,” it goes on, recalling a “determination to ensure effective control of the Union’s external borders through all available means … in line with EU and international law.”
The last part was necessary to get ahead of any discussion about the legality of the move, as the EU Court of Justice already ruled out any suspension of asylum rights a few years ago when Lithuania was trying to implement the same measure. When asked about the legal aspects, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen stressed that Poland and the others won’t violate international standards as long as “the measures are temporary and proportionate.” In other words, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
“I have just come from a meeting with all the most important leaders and what I wanted to achieve, I achieved,” a triumphant Tusk told journalists late in the evening after exiting the Council chamber.
There will also be follow-up discussions about what the EU can do to address the problem from Brussels after Finnish PM Petteri Orpo called for the bloc to enact joint legislation as soon as possible. That could include some sort of framework to reimburse frontline countries for the costs spent on protecting the external borders—Tusk said Poland spends €600 million annually on countering Russia’s hybrid warfare—as well as possible sanctions on airlines that participate in the Kremlin’s scheme.
‘Return hubs’ at arm’s length
The other main point in the migration debate was concerning von der Leyen’s proposal of “innovative solutions,” including setting up so-called return hubs (i.e., deportation centers) outside of EU borders, where rejected asylum seekers are brought until they can be returned to their countries of origin or other ‘safe’ destinations, the list of which will also be reviewed and possibly extended.
In the resolution, the Council calls for “determined action” on all levels to “facilitate, increase, and speed up returns,” using existing but enhanced instruments as well as “new ways”—a semi-direct reference to the ‘return hubs’—that they invite the Commission to propose in legislation “as a matter of urgency.”
The problem this tries to address is that the EU barely managed to reach 20% in ‘effective returns,’ meaning people who had been issued deportation orders and actually left Europe. In theory, if these people are forced to wait out the bureaucratic process in external facilities, that would prevent them from evading authorities once the time for deportation comes.
The majority of leaders were pushing for these external facilities to work as asylum processing centers for those arriving as well, following Italy’s example with its newly inaugurated migrant centers in Albania. It would further simplify things if only those could enter the EU who had already been granted international protection, eliminating the risk of them disappearing into the Schengen.
Although the vague wording of the resolution doesn’t exclude this possibility, the Commission and some bigger member states remain skeptical of the idea for now. Von der Leyen stressed that her preferred scheme is much closer to the UK’s ‘Rwanda plan’ than Italy’s Albania protocol, but that might change down the line when the institutions are ready to discuss concrete steps.
All this is only the first step of a very long journey. The ball is in the Commission’s court to begin drafting new legislation, which will then be handed to the Parliament for tweaks before entering its final negotiation phase between all three institutions. It would be best to have it done by early 2026 so that it could go live together with the Migration Pact, which it is ultimately supposed to complement.
