The European Council met today 8th of May for the first working session to discuss about a directive on political asylum. Different topics were debated and opposite positions were taken during the day.
After the commissioner Anastasia Granitos’s speech, the delegates of countries exposed their position about a directive on political asylum and a burning debate started. A large group of countries, like Germany, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands and more, underlined the urgency of the crisis we are passing through but also highlighted the importance of finding a common decision which is propositive and open to help refugees. On the other hand there is a relevant group of countries, like Hungary, Cyprus, Slovakia, Bulgaria and more that are transit lands and are facing the problem finding less open solutions.
The debate was also based on how countries should act. Moderating between a common decision and the respect of national interests seemed difficult, in particular because of the reluctant position of United Kingdom and Hungary towards european procedures.
During the rest of the day, ministers discussed and proposed three amendments to the directive which are going to be voted during the following days. the first one, proposed by Denmark, Austria and Estonia suggest the introduction of a sovereign authority of the EU to control external geographical borders of Europe.
The Netherlands, Hungary and Denmark focused on security proposing to share all refugees datas in a way to promote cooperation.
Last but not least, a big group of countries- Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Slovakia- supported a big amendament mainly based on security which included also the “use of military and navy forces in assessing asylum applicants to threat them” to increase security in the external borders.
Exactly in the middle of the debated Francesco Carboni, a commissioner of the European Council, announced a breaking news: an enterprise in Slovakia has exploited 120 women asylum seekers (part of them were muslims), and they are going to Hungary to denounce the happening. Still shocked by the event, ministers had a short conversation, who saw Hungary and Slovakia as protagonists. The two ministers both expressed the seriousness of the fact that reiterate the importance of take an action, but both concluded agreeing that there are not enough details and information to make a resolution.
At the end of the working session there was a press conference who involved Slovakia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Latvia, Cyprus, Finland and Estonia. The main themes touched were of course the crisis happened in Slovakia and the strict position that it and Hungary has towards political asylum. Slovakia took the chance to express again the importance of protecting the national territory and population, not showing much care to refugees; meanwhile Hungary insisted on the pointlessness of EU decisions and pushed for protection of national interests.
Sara Eleonori
Sapienza moves to debate 