Migrants, the EU splits. Italy votes on refugee pact

After a day of exhaustive negotiations, the European Union’s interior ministers approved the Pact for Migration and Asylum. Approved with six member countries abstaining: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Malta and Bulgaria. While Italy voted in favour. After almost three years of work, the two main regulations of the Pact were approved, now negotiations with Parliament will begin. The new rules provide for a mandatory solidarity mechanism that does not mean mandatory relocations, but a compensation fee of 20,000 euros per migrant to be paid if a State does not accept the relocations. More streamlined procedures are then introduced for asylum applications, repatriations and a cap on reception quotas in each state. “Italy reached consensus on all the proposals put forward during today’s Council. First, we avoid the hypothesis that Italy and all first-entry Member States were paid to keep irregular migrants on their territories.

Italy will not be the center for the collection of immigrants on behalf of Europe”, declared the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, after the vote in the Council of Internal Affairs. “We managed – continued Piantedosi – the creation of a new European fund for third countries of origin and transit of flows. In the system, as an obligatory measure of solidarity complementary to relocation, compensation for ‘dublinanti’ is also provided for. We were able to obtain a legal framework of reference for possible agreements with safe third countries. We also avoided placing limitations that would have excluded some countries.” Even the terms of responsibility of the first-entry country for cases of Sar, search and rescue, “have been reduced thanks to our intervention. For the first time, cases of Sar are considered responsibility of the European Union. Finally, with regard to border procedures, in which Italy, at national level, was ahead of European times, with the measures introduced by the Cutro decree, we were able to obtain the creation of an effective European system of control of external borders. We also obtained a system review clause after an initial sustainability test. Finally, an agreement was also reached on financial support measures for the operational implementation (also through infrastructure) of border procedures”, he concludes.

In sum, the government in Rome appreciates the progress made in meeting Italy’s requests, but this is not enough. Poland has criticized the decision to charge €20,000 per unwanted migrant through relocation. An “unacceptable” number for a government that has already welcomed more than a million Ukrainians. Warsaw, together with the Hungarian government, ask that the matter be dealt with at the level of heads of state and government at the European Council of 29 and 30 June, where the unanimity rule applies.