Juncker demands ‘immediate action’ on migration

In his State of the Union speech, Juncker unveils new proposals to deal with the refugee crisis.

The European Commission will introduce a new proposal for legal migration into the EU in 2016, Jean-Claude Juncker announced Wednesday, in one of several measures he offered to deal with the refugee crisis.

Juncker, in his State of the Union speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, said the Commission would urge EU member states to act quickly on its proposal for the emergency relocation of a total of 160,000 refugees currently in Italy, Greece and Hungary. EU interior ministers will consider the proposal at a special meeting on September 14.

“We now need immediate action,” Juncker said. “We cannot leave Italy, Greece and Hungary to fare alone. Just as we would not leave any other EU member state alone. For if it is Syria and Libya people are fleeing from today, it could just as easily be Ukraine tomorrow.”

Juncker said a broader new proposal on migration was needed because existing “legal channels” were not sufficient to address the current refugee crisis.

If there are “more, safe and controlled roads opened to Europe, we can manage migration better and make the illegal work of human traffickers less attractive,” Juncker said. Over time, he added, “migration must change from a problem to be tackled to a well-managed resource.”

“This requires a strong effort in European solidarity,” Juncker said. “Before the summer, we did not receive the backing from member states I had hoped for. But I see that the mood is turning. And I believe it is high time for this.”

Juncker also addressed the migration issue in the context of climate change, which he called “one the root causes of a new migration phenomenon. Climate refugees will become a new challenge – if we do not act swiftly.”

Yet, a new specific measure on this front “probably is not on the top of the list” of EU priorities, given the amount of problems on migration the Commission is already facing, said Elizabeth Collett of Migration Policy Institute Europe, a think tank.

Immediately after the State of the Union address, the European Parliament began a debate on the Commission’s Migration Agenda, which was introduced in May to address the crisis.

Juncker’s team emphasized the need for immediate action when EU interior ministers meet next week.

“What we do next Monday is closely linked to the destiny of the European Union,” said Commission first vice president Frans Timmermans, in opening the debate. 

The commissioner in charge of migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that “if there was ever a moment where we would absolutely need an EU approach for migration, now is that moment.”

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini added: “Our external credibility largely depends on our coherence and consistency,” stressing that Europe needs an external as well internal response to the current humanitarian crisis.

After the debate MEPs backed temporary emergency rules to relocate an initial total of 40,000 asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece to other EU member states over two years — the most controversial part of the Commission’s migration agenda from May. Several MEPs also welcomed Juncker’s new proposals for more permanent solutions.

“We have a humanitarian crisis and we need to act on it now,” said MEP Ska Keller of the Green group. “Relocating 40,000 refugees is just the start. Let this measure be the start of a rights-based, a fair and a common asylum policy, in solidarity with all member states and in solidarity with the refugees.”

In his speech Juncker referred to moments in European history when refugees were fleeing from countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and Spain. “We Europeans should remember that Europe is a continent where nearly everyone at some point has been a refugee,” he said, adding that governments should not take people’s religion into account when offering a safe haven.

The comment comes after officials in Slovakia and Poland suggested that they would accept only Christian refugees.

After Juncker’s speech, the Commission released more details about its migration plans ahead of the September 14 ministerial meeting. It confirmed that the new proposal would call for the relocation of an additional 120,000 refugees across Europe. It also confirmed that the countries choosing not to take part in the new mandatory scheme would have an opt-out option called the “temporary solidarity clause.”

If, “for justified and objective reasons such as a natural disaster,” a member state cannot temporarily participate in a relocation decision, it would have to make a financial contribution to the EU budget of an amount of 0.002 percent of its GDP.