2023-10-04 16:24:55
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Georgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister. The picture shows her at a press conference from Lampedusa on September 17th. Image: AFP
Once again it is Rome that has prevailed in asylum policy. It is a defeat for Germany that a phalanx of right-wing populists had to come before there could be an EU asylum reform.
The mood in the EU regarding asylum policy can be gauged from the fact that Berlin recently hit granite in Rome. The Italian government, falsely portrayed in this country as Mussolini’s successor, has asserted that the crisis mechanism in the common EU asylum regime also applies when rescue operations on the Mediterranean promote surges in migration.
Berlin became an advocate for private initiatives that did not want to trigger crisis mode. Many EU states, which are happy that Ms. Meloni and not Ms. Merkel is in power in Italy, saw things differently and supported Rome. As is so often the case in migration policy, Germany was once again isolated.
The asylum reform, which in future provides for a procedure at the EU borders whose implementation in Germany always failed due to red-green conservatism, can now be put to rest in time for the European elections. It would have been good for European and national asylum policy if this agreement had come much earlier.
Thomas Gutschker and Matthias Rüb Published/Updated: Recommendations: 85 Matthias Rüb, Rome Published/Updated: Recommendations: 37 Justus Bender, Jochen Buchsteiner, Konrad Schuller and Rüdiger Soldt Published/Updated: Recommendations: 137
Because it is not the weakening of minimum humanitarian standards that is to be feared, but rather the advanced gutting of the right to asylum through economic refugees and inadequate returns. It is also a political defeat for Germany that a phalanx of right-wing populists had to come to get things moving.
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