EU migration summit: why can’t a deal be struck?

Several proposals are on the table but the
bloc remains deeply divided over how to solve the crisis

In Depth

This has been backed by France and Italy, but Human Rights Watch has condemned the plan,
warning that it would deflect responsibility onto countries outside
the EU with less capacity to process claims and protect refugees
and migrants.

EU leaders “should be guided by the compass of rights and firmly
reject offshore processing, which Australia has shown to be a
recipe for abuse and despair,” says Judith Sunderland, the
organisation’s associate Europe and Central Asia director.

The group proposes setting up a regional disembarkation
agreement among EU countries instead, where fair and humane
treatment for all migrants would be guaranteed.

Meanwhile, Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister and head of
the new populist, anti-immigration government, has gone even
further by calling for the Dublin regulation to be overhauled.

Under the current law, asylum seekers must be registered in the
EU country in which they arrive, which critics claim places an
unfair burden on southern European countries.

Conte’s government has effectively closed its ports to foreign
ships carrying refugees and migrants, leaving them stranded at sea
until other EU states have agreed to accept them.

Why do divisions run so deep?

There is huge disagreement among member states over how much
responsibility each nation should take for migrants and
refugees.

Germany – and to a certain extent France and Spain – are seeking
a Europe-wide solution that protects Europe’s Schengen
passport-free zone and the Dublin regulation, The Guardian reports. “Italy, however, is
unlikely to play ball: the last thing [it] wants is to take
migrants back who have already left.”

The debate is further complicated by Hungary, Poland, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia, which have refused to take in asylum seekers
under any EU plan and want “no more discussion of such schemes,”
the newspaper adds.

Experts agree that any agreement beyond simply increasing border
patrols appears highly unlikely.

“This issue is once again showing the weakness of the EU when it
comes to sensible, common decisions to take in the field of
security, solidarity and cooperation versus national interest,”
Stefano Torelli, a researcher at the Institute for International
Political Studies in Milan, told Al Jazeera.