Bitter negotiations over EU immigration policy

A radical change to immigration policy that would hand over much of the responsibility to the EU was being bitterly negotiated by EU leaders in Brussels.

With record numbers of migrants illegally coming into the EU across the Mediterranean from north Africa and through borders in eastern Europe, proposals to take control of the situation were on the table. The main focus was on a proposal to have countries share about 40,000 Syrians and Eritreans from Italy and Greece — a fraction of the 600,000 who applied for asylum last year.

The original proposal was that each country would sign up to take a share of the 40,000, all of whom would qualify for asylum.

But this was watered down before the meeting when most countries, including Ireland, insisted they would not agree to the proposal being mandatory, but might agree if it was voluntary.

Many are economic migrants. A quarter are from Kosovo and do not qualify for asylum and whom national authorities normally rule should be sent home.

However, last year less than half were returned, and the draft on the table aims to beef up the returns policy, using the border agency. They also want to draw up a list of safe countries whose citizens are not under threat and could be returned almost automatically, though a high-speed process.

There would also be a collective management of migrants with the creation of hot-spots in areas under pressure, to help with finger printing and processing asylum claims.

Under the Dublin agreement, this is currently done by the first EU country they enter. However this is proving to be near impossible for some countries, including Italy, Greece, and Hungary.

The agreement has broken down as people can no longer be returned to Greece because their system is being reconstructed with funds from the EU while Hungary has threatened to refuse to take back any of the thousands that first enter the EU through their country. Italy is also allowing many of their migrants to move to the rest of the Europe without finger printing them.

But changing the Dublin agreement would meaning changing a raft of laws that would be difficult to get agreement on. EU leaders are expected to agree to many of the proposed changes but officials say getting agreement on sharing out some of the asylum seekers will be very difficult.