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3 months ago
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EU socialists’ lead candidate Nicolas Schmit could be open to outsourcing asylum procedures outside the EU if these are “under European control”, he told Euractiv in an interview, while criticising Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen for not involving all her commissioners in the EU’s third-country migration deals.
In mid-May, 15 EU countries sent a letter to the European Commission, asking to outsource asylum procedures to neighbouring countries. One of the leaders of this initiative was the Socialist-led Danish government, which has a tougher position on migration than other members of the Party of European Socialists (PES).
The PES manifesto clearly states the party stands “against any form of EU border externalisation.”
But asked whether such a dichotomy is problematic for the Socialist family, Schmit, who is the PES’ lead candidate in June’s EU elections and the current Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, replied:
“If externalising means that sometimes you could organise, but under our control, under European control, asylum procedures before people come into the European Union, that could be discussed.”
“Then this has to be done under the authority of the Union as such, with the help of the [UN’s] High Commissioner for Refugees,” he added, emphasising that any externalisation would need to be in accordance with human rights and the UN Refugee Convention.
The agency currently dealing with migration matters is Frontex, the EU’s border control body, which cannot operate outside EU territory.
Apart from the freshly approved Asylum and Migration Pact, the EU has also sealed individual deals with Tunisia, Mauritania, and Egypt to help reduce migration influx to Europe, but without going as far as to externalise asylum procedures.
These deals were highly controversial, as NGOs and EU socialists themselves argued that these countries do not guarantee respect for human rights. Schmit pointed out that the deals had not been properly discussed among the 27-strong College of Commissioners.
Von der Leyen involved College ‘to the minimum’
While the Commission spokesperson service argues that the migration deals were decided “following the procedures,” Schmit said the commissioners were notified last-minute on a Friday afternoon “without having discussed that even on some civil servant levels, and you had one hour to say if you agree or not.”
“You can always use the procedure as you wish, limiting it to the minimum of the minimum, which was done for this thing,” he said.
Schmit argued that von der Leyen’s approach to the College “is not the management style I would approve and pursue because we are apparently a geopolitical Commission, but we are not a political Commission”
He added that important topics, such as migration deals, should be discussed in-depth at a political level, by the College of Commissioners.
“This is what I would change, I would involve more the College,” he said.
Von der Leyen also came under fire recently over her involvement in the appointment of an EPP party colleague to a high-level position as SME envoy in the Commission.
The commissioner in charge of the portfolio, Thierry Breton, said that she had bypassed him.
In a similar vein, Schmit told Euractiv that “everything is now done finally at a civil servant level,” without key policy proposals being deeply discussed among the 27 commissioners.
“I’m an adult. I’m a politician. I’m not just there to sit and say, yes, yes, bravo, well done.”
In contrast, Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer said on 27 May that “this is a very, very collegial commission,” arguing that the president had involved all commissioners in the decision-making process through the existing procedures.
On the migration deals, he said, cabinet members of all commissioners were invited to frequent meetings to discuss them.
[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Sarantis Michalopoulos/Zoran Radosavljevic]
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