The Government had every confidence that the last piece of the European Union’s immigration reform, the crisis management regulation, would be sealed in Spain three days before the general elections. However, that achievement – ??if it comes at all – will have to wait. The informal meeting that the European Interior Ministers held yesterday in Logroño, framed within the Spanish six-month presidency, ended without white smoke in the most thorny aspect: the solidarity mechanisms that must govern in the EU when there are massive inflows of migrants.
Before the meeting began, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, had already assumed that the final green light would not go on in Logroño. However, he was “confident” that this month it will be possible to close the position of the Council of Ministers of the Interior, which must establish a position to start the negotiation with the Eurochamber. However, at the end of the meeting, at a press conference, he lowered those temporary expectations.
The main stumbling block that the European partners find at this point is that not all countries agree with the distribution of migrants that can arrive en masse in Europe. Those member states are Poland and Hungary, governed by ultra-conservatives. “There has not been any change in the positions of Hungary and Poland, the differences are of conception, of how the principles of responsibility and solidarity should be conceived”, he declared.
The Spanish minister specified that they are in the “final stretch” and that an answer must be given, although “without falling into precipitation and urgency.” “It is an inalienable pact,” he said. The idea is that the final signature of the pact is initialed before the end of this European legislature. The elections will be on June 9, 2024.
It was the European commissioner for the area, Ilva Johansson, who in the subsequent press conference downplayed the Hungarian and Polish position, recalling that unanimity is not needed to approve the long-awaited migration pact. Johansson wanted to wink at Spain – after assuring that there is “trust between the states” to carry out the plan – predicting that “we will be able to manage the migration crisis in the Canaries together”. While this route is currently on the decline, it is one of the deadliest.
In the meeting of headlines of the Interior, the great security challenges that have all European police forces on alert were also addressed: the fight against organized crime with special attention to drug trafficking, cybercrime as a transnational fight and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, focusing on monitoring the illicit trafficking of arms and people.
Today it will be the turn of the European Ministers of Justice, who plan to analyze the mechanisms for better protection and attention to victims of crime and the improvement of the accessibility of justice in the 21st century, especially with people with disabilities in mind. The responses that are expected from the field of justice to the challenges derived from the growing threat that organized crime poses to EU citizens will also complete the agenda of this meeting.
