Europe Letter: Refugee crisis centre stage as leaders forced to take stock

Three weeks after an emergency EU summit secured agreement on a controversial relocation plan for refugees, EU leaders will return to the issue of migration at their annual October summit today in Brussels.

While the refugee crisis no longer dominates international news coverage, the problem shows no sign of abating.

A report from the EU's border agency Frontex this week found that 710,000 migrants crossed into the EU in the first nine months of the year. This compares with 282,000 for the whole of last year. The Greek islands, particularly Lesbos, continue to receive the vast majority of refugees entering Europe, according to the report.

There is a growing sense in Brussels that migration is emerging as the defining issue for the EU. “The penny has finally dropped. This is a massive issue,” said one senior EU official ahead of the summit. “[It] will be a key issue for the EU over the next five to 10 years.”

In a letter sent to EU leaders this week ahead of the meeting, EU council president Donald Tusk warned of the "threat of bigger waves [of refugees] flowing to Europe" next spring.

‘New migratory wave’

The decisions taken by the EU today, he said, must be “sufficient to contain a new migratory wave”, which could see millions of people attempting to enter the EU.

Tusk has consistently taken a more hardline approach than German chancellor Angela Merkel on the migration challenge, shifting the terms of the EU debate towards strengthening Europe's external borders and away from a focus on the bloc's humanitarian and legal responsibilities. Having secured agreement on the divisive refugee relocation programme last month, Tusk has been keen to move on from internal recriminations and shift the debate to a more strategic, long-term level.

As a result, today’s summit is likely to signal a toughening of approach by the EU to asylum seekers, building on the conclusions of various meetings of EU justice and foreign affairs ministers over the past few weeks, which have stressed the need for a better returns policy and the reinforcement of borders.

Among the most contentious proposals under discussion today is the possible establishment of an EU border guard, which would patrol the EU’s external borders. While in principle this would involve personnel from across the EU, a number of countries are wary of ceding control to the EU in this area, with the result that the final proposal may simply be an expansion of the existing border agency Frontex. This would also mean that British and Irish personnel would not be involved as non-Schengen members.

‘Hotspot’ approach

A discussion of the “hotspot” approach being pushed by the

European Commission

as a way of helping frontline member states deal with the migratory inflows is also expected. The commission has established a number of hotspots in

Italy

and

Greece

staffed by officials from EU agencies such as the European Asylum Support Office and Frontex to help national officials register and fingerprint migrants. While hotspots have been set up in Italy, the first in Greece is scheduled for Lesbos by the end of the year, with commission officials stressing that an “increase in reception capacity” is its primary aim.

With most asylum application processes in Italy and Greece taking more than six months to process, there is serious concern that the commission’s proposal is insufficient to deal with the sheer numbers of migrants who, under the Dublin convention, must be housed in their first country of arrival while awaiting the result of their asylum application.

But despite the obvious flaws in the Dublin system no serious revision of the convention is expected at today’s summit. As one senior EU official from an east European state said: “We see that Dublin doesn’t work, but abolishing it would be detrimental and would create a legal vacuum. At the moment we cannot afford to send the message that Dublin is failing.”

Also on the leaders' agenda will be Syria. In one of the strongest interventions yet by the EU in the crisis, foreign ministers meeting on Monday accused the Assad regime of bearing "the greatest responsibility" for 250,000 deaths in Syria and denounced Russia's incursion into the region.

The EU is deeply divided on its response to the Syrian war, with Germany and Poland in favour of engagement with Bashar al-Assad, and Britain – and even more so France – strongly opposed.

The debate about the EU’s potential role in a political solution is likely to be one of the most divisive issues at the summit as the EU grapples with the humanitarian spillover of the 4½-year conflict.