EU leaders resist Orbán's push to reverse asylum burden-sharing deal

BRUSSELS, June 30 (EUROPA PRESS) -

The heads of State and Government of the European Union have resisted this Friday the pulse of their Hungarian colleagues, Viktor Orbán, and Polish, Mateusz Morawiecki, to try to impose unanimity in common decisions on migration policy and thus reverse the recent agreement reached at the level of ministers to create a mandatory mechanism for the distribution of the burden of asylum among the Twenty-seven.

The summit of leaders in Brussels has concluded with a text of conclusions that leaves out the ideas contained in the draft on migration due to the blockade of Budapest and Warsaw, which has forced the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, to publish those ideas in a parallel own statement supported by all the other leaders.

"We have taken a new important step that validates the agreement reached by a qualified majority", Michel highlighted at the end of the European Council, in a press conference in which he confirmed that Hungary and Poland "disapprove" both the "substance" of the pact that the EU negotiates as with the "decision process".

Along the same lines, the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, has stressed that an "overwhelming majority" --represented by 25 of the 27 leaders-- has given its support to Michel's statement, which in practice means an endorsement greater than that reached at the level of ministers weeks ago where, in addition to the opposition of Hungary and Poland, other countries showed reservations that this Friday they have not maintained.

"It is a very solid basis for the continuation of the work," insisted Kristersson, who, like other leaders who have spoken between Thursday and Friday on the matter, have stressed that migration and asylum decisions within the EU is taken by a qualified majority and not unanimously, because that is what the Treaties stipulate.

Asked about the tensions, Michel wanted to value the fact that the leaders have "shown cold blood and calm" because it will allow them to "continue advancing" in the negotiations to meet the objective of closing the Migration Pact before the end of this legislature in June next year.

After a first frustrated attempt by the Twenty-seven to agree on a text of conclusions on Thursday, the Italian president, Giorgia Meloni, also unsuccessfully tried to convince Orbán and Morawiecki early on Friday in a private trilateral meeting to raise their reserves.

Meloni later told the press that she is not "disappointed" because she understands that Hungary and Poland are simply defending national interests, although she has warned that "there will never be unanimity" on migration in the EU and has defended the need to overcome differences betting on strengthening the external dimension of migration and asylum management.

"But it is not a disaster that the conclusions have not been adopted, everything on which there has been progress will continue," reasoned the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, who also evoked the commitment to strengthen support for Tunisia to curb illegal routes as a model that should be "replicated" with other third countries.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for his part, has lamented the "blindness" that, in his opinion, is shown by the EU countries that do not recognize the importance of the external dimension; At the same time, he has hoped that, during the semester of the EU presidency that Spain assumes from this Saturday, the 27 will reach an agreement on immigration reform that "balances responsibility and solidarity."