Resentments from the past, mistrust, ultra-nationalist speeches and an election in the autumn in Poland are a large part of the reasons that prevented the Heads of State and Government from concluding conclusions on migration yesterday. Hungary and Poland insisted on their blockade after a two-day summit in Brussels to show their displeasure with the migration pact reached earlier this month.
After hours of negotiations, the European leaders could not close the conclusions and had to settle with a text from the President of the Council, Charles Michel, due to the lack of unanimity. Twenty-five heads of State and Government saw how their two counterparts – the Hungarian Viktor Orbán and the Polish Mateusz Morawiecki – insisted on their position. The two leaders vetoed any progress that spoke of migration – in the draft, it was a matter of focusing on the reinforcement of external borders -, in addition to betting on agreements with countries of origin and transit, such as Tunisia or Egypt, in which it is not only opting for the containment of migration, but also for investment projects.
However, despite the fact that all the leaders agree on this need, Warsaw and Budapest wanted, first of all, to address the agreement reached at the beginning of this month on the migration pact and which the two countries rejected.
In this agreement, it was approved that when a country receives an unusually large number of arrivals of asylum seekers, an emergency instrument will be activated so that European countries share a quota of migrants. If some countries refuse, they will have to pay 20,000 euros per person per year, with staff or equipment. The only two countries that voted against it were Poland and Hungary. Interior policy decisions do not require unanimity, but a qualified majority (55% of the countries that represent at least 65% of the EU’s population), which is why Warsaw and Budapest wanted to fight in the European Council, where they do it requires a green light from everyone. “I think the debate is focused on the resentment that was created in 2015, and that has no relation to the agreements that are being tried to be reached today. These are debates from 2015, we must move forward, focus on what unites us and not on what divides us”, reflected the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas. “You can’t go back to what has already been decided (…) because otherwise we could all ask to open issues that were agreed ten years ago”, said the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel.
