Brussels – Between now and the end of the year, action on the EU’s clampdown on irregular immigration is in the hands of the Danish presidency of the EU Council, which will coordinate the Member States in seeking agreement on proposals put on the table by the European Commission on repatriations and the revision of the safe third country concept. Today, meeting in Copenhagen, the interior ministers of the 27 got a taste of the “iron fist” promised by Mette Frederiksen‘s social democratic government.
“We have the opportunity to dismantle the asylum system that is currently dysfunctional,” began the Danish Minister for Immigration and Integration, Kaare Dybvad Bek, at a press conference on the sidelines of the informal meeting. With him, Magnus Brunner, Head of Home Affairs for the European executive, who emphasised how Brussels and Copenhagen are “perfectly aligned” on the issue. The aim is to rush, to get the member states to agree on a negotiating mandate as soon as possible, hoping that in parallel the European Parliament will also support the proposals at stake without too many changes.
These are the repatriation regulation, the revision of the concept of safe third countries, and the list of safe countries of origin, three building blocks that, if approved, will allow European capitals to adopt “innovative solutions” to oppose the arrival of migrants: the return hubs for example, but also agreements on the Italy-Albania model to proceed with the examination of asylum applications outside the EU.
“Of course, there are also some very good ideas from the Member States,’ said Brunner. “Our role is to support these ideas.” And indeed, Ursula von der Leyen herself is a regular guest at the informal meetings of the club—led by Denmark, together with Italy and the Netherlands—of Member States that aim to raise the bar on what can be done to combat irregular migration.
Last time, on the margins of the European Council in June, there were 14 of them. Brunner stated that “now most of the member states are aligned.” According to the Danish minister, there were “many similar opinions around the table.” Emblematic, in this sense, is the change of position of Germany, which ten years ago led the front of the most supportive countries—the then Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015 opened the doors to more than a million refugees from Syria—and has instead now pledged its support for the clampdown proposed by Brussels. “We support the call for the creation of repatriation hubs. We believe it is an innovative and absolutely necessary approach,” confirmed German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, arriving in Copenhagen this morning.
Responding to a reporter’s question, Social Democrat Dybvad Bek pointed the finger precisely at the “wir schaffen das (we will make it, ed) mentality,” a phrase uttered by Merkel in August 2015 and which became a symbol of European migration policy in those years. Frugal Denmark makes an economic argument out of it: “I don’t think it has brought anything good to the European continent,” said the minister, explaining that “for the 40,000 Syrian refugees in Denmark there is a total income of about half a billion euros, while the associated public expenditure amounts to about one and a half billion.” A “huge deficit for the nation”.
Copenhagen was allegedly the victim of deception: “At the time we were told that these were highly qualified people who would enter our labour market, but what we see is that, in reality, this is not the case,” Dybvad Bek continued. Syrian women in Denmark, for example, “have an annual income of around eight thousand euro, so from an economic point of view it is not sustainable.”
An analysis as cold as it is irrefutable. But those 40,000 were fleeing a civil war that from 2011 to 2015 claimed more than 250,000 lives and devastated a country in which, today—ten years on and with Bashar al Assad’s bloody regime gone—there are still some seven million internally displaced persons. “I still think we have a humanitarian responsibility, and it is important to remember that,” the Danish minister concluded. Yes, it is important to remember that.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
