French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday decried a “bad” and “very politicised” debate on migration between EU leaders at a summit in Brussels.
However, the text failed to secure the support of all 27 EU member states. Migration is typically one of the most sensitive subjects in Brussels, but tensions were ramped up by the fallout from the deadly migrant rush to Spanish territory Ceuta this summer. The mass arrival of tens of thousands of people in the territory in North Africa highlighted the fragilities of European cooperation on migration issues. At the summit, two opposing camps emerged. On one side is Spain, which advocates for an open immigration policy, including a large-scale programme to regularise the status of undocumented migrants and which notably received support from France and Luxembourg in Friday’s debates. On the other side are the far greater numbers EU member states that favour a very hardline approach to migration such as Italy and Denmark which, at the height of the crisis, had even demanded that Spain be excluded from the Schengen Area. “When this discussion around the table is politicised, it creates division, and when you create division and fall back on national-level solutions, you end up being ineffective.
“We are aware of the ideological divisions among the people around this table,” Macron said. During this exchange among leaders, Poland, Italy, and Denmark pushed for the adoption of a text that characterised irregular migration as a “challenge” to societies. The proposed text also criticised initiatives that “encourage” migrants to travel to Europe a thinly veiled jab at Spain. “I have some disagreements with the prime minister of Denmark,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said following the discussion between the leaders.
Since then, the Europeans have been trying to pick up the pieces but with limited success. The heated debate came despite Rome and Madrid on Friday agreeing to remove tit-for-tat border checks introduced following a spat over Ceuta. cjc-del/ec/ach This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
