In the end, they failed. Giorgia Meloni couldn’t pull it off this time.
EU leaders on Friday walked away from their summit in Brussels without releasing a joint statement on migration. Hungary and Poland, who had launched an 11th-hour attack on the already-agreed position on migration, would not relent in their opposition.
In a sign of the times, Italy’s leader Giorgia Meloni tried to strike a deal with the two leaders on the sidelines of the summit. But it was not enough to unblock the impasse.
“I am never disappointed by those who defend their national interests,” Meloni said as she left, papering over a potential rift with her right-wing allies.
The dispute was mostly symbolic. The end–of-summit text itself would have had almost no real impact on what was truly angering Hungary and Poland: A fresh deal to overhaul how Europe welcomes and relocates migrants.
But the failure of the European Council to finalize a joint statement sent a strong signal about the rising emotional register of migration talks these days. If even a relatively superficial text left leaders gnashing their teeth for hours, imagine what may lie ahead as the EU works to finalize and implement its new policies.
European Council President Charles Michel, who chose to issue a solo migration statement in lieu of a joint one to unblock the standstill, tried to put a positive spin on things. There were 25 countries backing the EU’s approach to migration, he emphasized.
“Let’s keep a level head, let’s keep calm here,” Michel said. “There is a great deal of convergence that was not there a few years ago when there was real tension.”
Not everyone shared his equanimity.
“I’m really, really not happy,” Slovak Prime Minister Ľudovít Ódor told POLITICO, fretting Hungary and Poland’s obstruction may set a precedent for other countries wanting to similarly stage protests at EU summits.
“That is why we need now to talk to them in order to find out how can we proceed forward,” he added.
Meloni’s moment
A few years ago it was German Chancellor Angela Merkel huddling with her counterparts on the EU summit sidelines to try and find a deal. On Friday, Meloni stepped into the role — a telling sign of the right-wing leader’s growing importance in a European landscape moving rightward.
After leaders reconvened on Friday morning, Meloni split off from the group to try and persuade Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to get back to the table and sign up to the relatively innocuous language on migration Michel had presented.
Though the Italian leader was essential to pushing through this month’s migration deal — which will make the asylum process stricter but also involve some migrant relocation within Europe — she failed to land a deal here.
Despite sharing ideological common ground — Hungary, Poland and Italy are all part of a strengthening right-wing bloc in European politics, and Warsaw and Rome are both members of a right-to-far-right political group — Meloni was unable to persuade her counterparts.
Poland was asking for two things. One was language committing the EU to make migration policy decisions unanimously (instead of the current “qualified majority” standard). And the second was language urging the EU to offer extra cash to manage the flow of refugees fleeing Ukraine.
Hungary gladly hopped on board, pushing the protest in an even more hard-line direction.
The three prime ministers returned empty-handed, however, raising questions about Meloni’s standing with her putative political allies. EU leaders were forced to drop the text on migration that had been expected to be in the end-of-summit communiqué.
The Italian leader downplayed the outcome.
“I completely understand their reasons,” she said.
Meloni argued that the two countries did not raise objections on her top priority, the “external dimension” of migration — essentially meaning the EU’s work with outside countries to reduce migrant flows.
“The only way to manage the situation together is the external dimension,” she said.
Instead, she noted, Poland and Hungary opposed the EU’s attempts to relocate some migrants within the EU. The new policy would offer countries a choice: either take in a set number of migrants or pay €20,000 for each person you do not accept.
However, the sections that were spiked in the leaders’ statement didn’t mention internal relocation. They only included calls to focus on the external dimension of migration in line with Meloni’s rhetoric.
Many diplomats and leaders stressed the recent migration deal was achieved in line with EU law, which only requires a “qualified majority” for such decisions. The two countries’ pleas for unanimity were widely seen as a ploy to stall the establishment of a system to redistribute migrants.
Preaching positivity
Despite the stand-off, many leaders preached calm.
That’s part of EU decision-making, German Chancellor Olaf shrugged before departing.
The more vital migration work, he argued, is getting the recent migration deal across the finish line. While EU countries have endorsed the deal, negotiators still have to get the pact through the European Parliament.
“The fact that we have now, after so many attempts, come so far [on a migration agreement] for the first time should be a reason for us not to stop trying to finalize this” before next year’s EU elections, Scholz said.
The EU’s repeated failures to create Continent-wide rules on processing and sharing migrants has been a big “mistake” for Europe over the past 10 to 20 years.
It was a sentiment shared around the table.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, whose government held the EU’s rotating presidency that oversaw the recent migration negotiations, touted the deal as “absolutely necessary” — even if there are objections.
The EU, he said, has achieved “what many had thought was almost impossible.”
Lili Bayer and Hans von der Burchard contributed reporting.
