The European Commission is weighing two very different options as the basis for a new emergency framework to deal with sudden influxes of migrants in the aftermath of this summer's Ceuta crisis.
After some 72,000 people crossed into the Spanish city from Morocco in a matter of two days, there has been urgent debate over how the EU should tackle any such future incidents.
One option is for new EU legislation setting out when and how governments could trigger emergency measures, potentially including the controversial temporary suspension of asylum procedures, according to EU officials and diplomats I spoke to.
The second would sidestep new legislation altogether. Instead, the Commission would issue broader guidance, giving national governments the political and legal cover to take emergency measures themselves.
The EU executive is leaning toward the second option and increasingly making the case in security rather than migration terms, people familiar with the discussions said.
“When movements are engineered and weaponised against us, this is not just a migration issue. It is a security issue, and protecting the external border is an existential duty for any state and for us as a Union," Magnus Brunner, the EU migration commissioner said after EU migration ministers’ talks in Luxembourg on Thursday.
When Ursula von der Leyen first announced she would be proposing a new emergency framework last month, ministers were left wondering what exactly the new instrument would add to the powers already available under the new migration pact.
There were also questions over how the new legislation can be made to work without running up against international law.
During the meeting on Thursday, several governments backed an EU-level mechanism that could allow asylum procedures to be temporarily suspended during sudden migration crises or in response to hybrid threats.
The idea was originally floated by Greece and has since won support from several countries, including Poland, Germany, Austria and Denmark, according to multiple diplomats.
The final call on how far Brussels should go rests with EU leaders at a summit in a fortnight.
Pressure for Russian tourist visa ban grows
August’s drone bomb plot in Germany, allegedly involving a Russian passport holder who entered the country on Italian tourist papers, is making it harder for countries to argue that issuing the visas is a national matter.
“This is not only about the fact that we see half a million Russians enjoying the freedom in Europe on tourist visas,” Johan Forssell, the Swedish interior minister, told me in an interview. “It’s also a matter of national security.”
During a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, nine EU countries, including Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Lithuania, called for a ban on issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens, multiple diplomats said.
France and Italy are among the EU countries that issue the highest number of visas to Russians and lead those who this summer watered down a push for restrictions on Russian soldiers from entering the bloc.
The latest incidents “really call for immediate action,” Forssell said, adding that he hoped countries would recognise the importance of being “very restrictive” on Russian tourists.
The European Commission is expected to propose targeted restrictive visa measures aimed at addressing security risks stemming from hostile actions by non-EU countries next year.
Meloni asks VDL to bend fiscal rules – again
Giorgia Meloni is back in von der Leyen’s inbox, asking Brussels for more fiscal room as soaring energy prices squeeze Italian households and businesses, according to a letter seen by Rapporteur.
The Italian PM argues governments need more room to use windfall tax revenue to cushion households and businesses and warns current eurozone spending ceilings may not account for higher-than-expected inflation.
This is not Italy's first push and it follows the country’s failure to exit the EU’s excessive deficit procedure last month. In April, Meloni made a similar plea for energy measures. The Commission later loosened rules for certain energy-security spending.
Italy called for the issue to be taken up at a meeting of finance ministers scheduled for next week.
The anti-social committee
The bad vibes are dialling up at the normally uneventful, institutional backwater of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).
Séamus Boland, the president of the advisory body, is under fresh pressure from anonymous staff whistleblowers who have accused him of “outrageous lies” in his handling of swirling corruption allegations about his secretary general.
“The file on the matters raised by the anonymous letters is currently with OLAF, and to date the EESC has not yet been informed of any outcome,” said a spokesman for Boland.
Read Eddy’s full story.
RN closes ranks around Bardella
France’s National Rally has closed ranks around Jordan Bardella, the would-be prime minister if Marine Le Pen – who leads the polls – wins the presidential elections next spring.
French outlet Mediapart published evidence it claims authenticates messages containing antisemitic remarks attributed to the RN chairman when he was a young activist.
The revelations have set fire to the election campaign. Centrist conservative presidential hopeful Édouard Philippe said it was now “almost established” that Bardella had made “scandalously antisemitic” remarks and called on the RN to act. Le Pen has so far stayed silent about the latest allegations.
Bardella said the messages are fabricated. RN figures have rallied behind him, attacking Mediapart and urging critics to let the courts decide. Bardella has filed a new complaint alleging document forgery, on top of a defamation complaint, my colleague Elisa Braun reported.
Here are three new stories from Rapporteur:
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