An EU Council was held last week, with several items on the agenda. The first item to discuss was clearly the developments in Russia after the near-coup attempted by the Wagner division, which ended up with its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin exiled to Belarus. EU leaders agreed on continued military support for Ukraine and a further increase of the financial ceiling of the European Peace Facility. The second item on the agenda was a strategic discussion about the EU’s relationship with China. The EU reiterated its intention of “pursuing constructive and stable relations” with China, while following a strategy of de-risking, i.e. diversifying supply chains.
The third point on the agenda was a discussion of the EU’s migration policy. On this issue, the Council could not find consensus for the opposition of the leaders of Poland and Hungary. In theory, the Council was supposed to approve a text that would meet Mateusz Morawiecki’s and Viktor Orbán’s desire to make it difficult for migrants to leave for Europe from countries such as Tunisia. But Poland and Hungary were still upset about the conclusions of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which in early June approved the asylum and migration management regulation and the asylum procedure regulation. The asylum procedures regulation (APR) establishes a common procedure across the EU that member states need to follow when migrants are seeking international protection. The asylum and migration management regulation (AMMR) meanwhile should replace the current Dublin regulation.
The combination of these two pieces of legislation de-facto establishes that all EU countries need to provide assistance to the countries of first arrival of migrants. That includes Poland for example in the case of Ukrainian refugees, but also Italy and Greece for migrants coming across the Mediterranean Sea. Given the opposition of Poland and Hungary, the EU’s final communique says that “President Michel took further note that Poland and Hungary declared that, in the context of the ongoing work on the pact on migration and asylum, there is a need to find consensus on an effective migration and asylum policy. The European Council will keep this work under review.”
This matters a lot for future European politics, ahead of next year’s elections. Giorgia Meloni’s dream is to bring the European group she leads, the European Conservatives and Reformists, into the majority that will elect the next EU Commission President, potentially Ursula Von Der Leyen again. But the veto posed by Poland and Hungary to the EU Council’s conclusions on migration will make it much harder for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) to join the European People’s Party (EPP), socialists and liberals in the next majority. Mainstream leaders asked Meloni to make a last-minute attempt to convince Morawiecki and Orbán to withhold their opposition, but she failed to do so.
Another item about which Meloni is trying to put pressure on her European colleagues is the ratification of the reform of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Italy is the only country that has not yet ratified the treaty, even though it is the third largest contributor to the fund. According to Meloni, Italy should only ratify the ESM reform together with the approval of the new rules of the stability and growth pact (SGP), which will come into force as of 2024, in a sort of “package deal.” However, this position is only creating frustration among Italy’s European partners, and some incredulity, since Italy would be the most relevant beneficiary of the fund, in case of a banking crisis.
These last few episodes are starting to expose the challenges that Meloni faces in Europe, at a time when the EU has not yet sent out the third instalment of the Recovery funds. She has surprised many to the upside, by taking a rather mainstream and cautious approach. But these episodes will test her real ability to drive her agenda through Europe.
