Hungary and Poland suppress EU migration summit | Abroad

For the moment, the two countries are blocking the conclusions of the European summit of heads of government and state in Brussels on the migration policy of the European Union. The Prime Ministers of the two former Eastern bloc countries consider the agreements recently concluded concerning, among other things, the reception of asylum seekers at the external borders of Europe and the care of asylum seekers to be unacceptable.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki completely rejects the agreements. He does not want to take in asylum seekers and wants new agreements on closing Polish borders with barriers that should be financed by Brussels. Warsaw wants to include in the conclusions that EU countries have the right to conduct their own migration policy and to decide for themselves who they accept on their territory.

According to Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Hungary and Poland are angry because these agreements were adopted in June, when the two countries were against it. It concerns the reception of asylum seekers at Europe’s external borders and a fair distribution of asylum seekers between the Member States. Support for the migration pact did not require unanimity, but a simple majority.

If EU leaders do not agree on Friday, there will be nothing wrong in practice, Rutte stressed. The agreements reached at the beginning of this month on internal European asylum policy remain valid.

Rutte is not afraid that Hungary and Poland will soon sabotage the agreements. If they do not respect the agreements, the European Commission “has the means to enforce them”, the Prime Minister said. And in subsequent decisions on asylum policy, the two troublemakers may again be outvoted.

The discussion on the first day of the summit was not about the reception and distribution of migrants already in Europe, but about preventing the arrival of new asylum seekers. “We want to regulate this a lot more. We also want to prevent these dangerous crossings. Poland and Hungary think so too, but they are now thwarting it to “send a signal”.

The Prime Minister understands the irritation of both countries. “It’s allowed and they now express it that way.”

Although the attitude of the two countries, according to Rutte, has no consequences on the migration pact, “it is of course better to see if you can reach a consensus on the external dimension”. Rutte refers, among other things, to the agreements concluded with non-European countries to curb the flow of migration.