The solution that was not a solution - Main contents

Summits often create political show time, but tend to underperform on practical solutions. Summits have become the bottleneck of Europe, the place where solutions get completely stuck, the source of European paralysis.

This is certainly true for the European Council meeting meant to address the “migration crisis”. Even in the long tradition of fudge European Council conclusions, this mornings’ text excels in vagueness and ambiguity.

It is all the more disappointing, as a much better alternative is available. The “Asylum package” is the only real and sustainable answer to migration, and the key to safeguarding Schengen. The asylum package, border controls, readmission agreements, EU Agencies: the toolkit is near to completion and ready for use. All it takes is the political will to take a decision and start the implementation.

The so called “Dublin” mechanism may be complex, but when reformed to ensure responsibility sharing, it will work. The European Parliament, with 751 members and all different political views represented in it, was able to adopt a common position with a solid majority of political groups. Then surely 28 government leaders can. Saying “it is complicated” is not good enough. They have a responsibility.

There certainly is a crisis, but a political one of national governments flatly refusing to apply the EU Treaties. The EU, an economic powerhouse with 500 million citizens, should be able to deal with this. However, the intergovernmental system from the 1950s, i.e. decision making on the basis of unanimity between national governments, was suitable for solving technocratic issues between a limited number of countries, but it is wholly unsuitable for thorny political issues of the 21st century. This was shown again by the fact that one country, Italy, blocked progress on reaching these conclusions for hours.

The bottleneck is that government leaders refuse to implement agreed policies based on the EU Treaties. Instead they prefer playing for the gallery and running election campaigns at the expense of both migrants and our own population. We need Treaty based EU solutions, not a patchwork of dodgy agreements between EU and third country governments.

Migration is a fact of life. It has always existed, and will always exist. We cannot negotiate it away or outsource it. We have to regulate and manage it ourselves. Only then are we in control and can we ensure compliance with our standards. The Council has at least left the door ajar for further work on a proper, effective, sustainable and humane asylum and migration policy. Let us now use that opportunity and show that Europe can do this!