EU leaders fudge on the migration crisis, again
What’s the difference between a fatberg and the latest excretion, on migration, from the European Union? The fatberg is what it is. We all know how it got there and, frankly, we are embarrassed that it should have come to this. The EU statement on migration, on the other hand, though of similar provenance, is likely to flush into the system and disappear without trace. Having passed through the European body politic, the rumbling it caused and the bad smell it released will be quickly forgotten – until the next time.
There were three imperatives for the leaders of the 27 (joined by Britain) when they got together yesterday in Brussels to tackle Third World migration. The first was that Italy, now run by a not-so-crazy coalition of “Italy First” patriots, should be assured that it would not be left alone to deal with the influx of asylum-seekers and job-seekers from sub-Saharan Africa.
The second was that Angela Merkel, the erstwhile champion of open frontiers, should not be so undermined that, upon her return to Berlin, her coalition government would implode. The third was that the Visegrad countries – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with the effective addition of Austria – should be able to reassure their electorates that, for the forseeable future, their nations would remain white, Christian and Muslim-free.
Only the third, one suspects, is likely to be believed and remain in force, and this largely because it will not be up to Brussels, but rather to the relevant member states to decide who to admit and who to reject. “Solidarity,” it transpires is voluntary, not mandatory. No wonder the new Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, felt able to tell journalists after day one of the summit that he was pleased with the result.
Mrs Merkel was less enthused, though clearly relieved that she had not been backed into a corner. In her prime, the German Chancellor would have wiped the floor with her opponents. But she is not in her prime. The passing of the years, combined with the impact of her decision in 2015 to admit some one million migrants into the Federal Republic, have left her a much reduced figure. This week, as leader of a weakened CDU, she was battling to hold on to her position in the face not only of the resurgent Far Right but of her interior minister, Horst Seehofer, head of the CSU, the CDU’s sister party in the hardline Free State of Bavaria.
What did she get out of the summit? Well, in alliance with France’s Emmanuel Macron (who needs her support on Eurozone reform), she managed to extract a commitment of sorts that the EU as a whole (less Visegrad) would take responsibility for divvying out new arrivals from Africa, the Middle East and Asia who wash up on the shores of Italy, Greece and, more recently, Spain.
Will this be enough to see off Seehofer? We should find out soon enough. The gruff interior minister says he has no wish to topple Merkel, but, aged 68 himself, this might be his last chance to seize the top job, at least until the next fatberg comes chugging through the pipes.
Which only leaves Italy. The new Italian premier, Giuseppe Conte, is nobody’s fool. A high-flying, multi-lingual lawyer, who studied at Yale, the Sorbonne and Cambridge, among other top universities, he has been characterised as no more than a figurehead for a government that in reality is run by Mateo Salvini, head of the right-wing Liga party, and Luigi di Maio, leader of the populist Five Star Movement.
While Salvini, as foreign minister, and Di Maio, minister for economic development, are obviously key figures, with Salvini the prime mover on immigration, Conte has comported himself well thus far and could end up a more substantive figure than his minders bargained for. Either way, the trio are of one mind when it comes to migration. They want help for Italy. They want Germany and France in particular to help them ease the burden of dealing with thousands of new arrivals by setting up “reception centres” (not camps) across the EU. In addition, they want progress on a commitment to open talks with Libya on sealing its southern borders.
As it happens, the crisis is nowhere near as severe this summer as it was in the last two years. Fewer migrants appear to be willing to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean, and Libya, at long last, seems to be ready – in return for cash – to do something to at least reduce the flood. High-visibility rescues of boat-people by international agencies lend an exaggerated sense of urgency to what is an increasingly containable problem.
Yet, if you are Italian, you will be painfully aware of the emergence in recent years of a large and unruly community of migrants, most of whom feel little gratitude to Rome and are anxious to be on their way to Germany Sweden and – dare we say it? – the UK.
If Conte has further ratcheted down the crisis by his unyielding stance in Brussels, so much the better for his government, and his country.
As for the EU, once again, for maybe the hundredth time, an existential crisis has been flushed down the toilet, to be dealt with by the sewage system of history. Theresa May might care to bear in mind that there has never yet been a European Union crisis so big that it cannot be enveloped in fudge and passed along for the next generation to deal with. In Brussels, where the future is defined by whatever words are uttered at the latest summit and destiny is about as romantic as regulatory reform, progress is rarely more than three steps forward and two steps back. What is truly astonishing is that, somehow, it works.