The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, has given her support to controversial migration reforms that would involve deporting people to third countries for asylum processing and the imposition of a quota system for those receiving protection in EU countries.
Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s party (EPP), said the policies – similar to the UK’s Rwanda scheme – had been worked out with all the parties in the EPP political group, which includes von der Leyen’s Christian Democrat Union in Germany.
Warning that “the far right wants to destroy Europe from the inside”, Weber said the EPP would be “crystal clear” about its desire to reduce immigration in the campaign for the European elections in June.
Asked if von der Leyen – who is expected to be nominated as the EPP’s candidate for European Commission president at its annual congress in Romania – backed these policies, Weber said: “All the programmatic positions of the European People’s party are [supported] also by Ursula von der Leyen … We do this as a team together.
He added: “What European people expect from us – and here the European People’s party will be, in the campaign, crystal clear – you have to lower the numbers of arrivals. And we have to separate the visitors who are refugees and asylum seekers who should get the protection they need.”
The policy is seen as an initiative to head off the rise of far-right and extremist parties such as the AfD in Germany. It envisages the EU doing a series of deals with non-EU states with a view to deporting people who have arrived via irregular migration routes for asylum processing in those “safe” third countries.
The draft law advocating the fundamental change in European asylum regime will be considered at the EPP’s annual congress in Bucharest on Wednesday as part of the party’s manifesto discussions.
But the hardening of migration policy is likely to inflame tensions within the parliament and create external political risks for von der Leyen, who must represent the interests of the entire EU and not one political bloc in parliament, where the EPP is the largest grouping.
She is expected to be formally selected as the EPP’s official candidate for the European Commission presidency in a vote in Romania on Thursday, meaning that it will back her for a second term in office.
One Brussels insider said “the socialists will go mad with this” – a reference to the Socialists and Democrats, the second-biggest voting bloc in the European parliament.
Sophie in ’t Veld, a Dutch MEP and the lead representative for the liberal Renew group on the parliament’s committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs, called the measure “yet another unsavoury EPP chunk of red meat, meant to attract the far-right vote”.
She added: “It will not work. All the EPP strategy has achieved over the past years is making the far right bigger. So if they know it doesn’t work, why do they stubbornly repeat the same tactics each time?”
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The EPP represents centre-right parties across Europe, including government parties in Greece, Poland, Ireland, Latvia, Croatia, Lithuania, Sweden, Romania, Finland and Luxembourg.
Its manifesto says: “We want to implement the concept of safe third countries. Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there.” However, in what could be seen as an effort to set itself apart from the UK’s controversial Rwanda policy, the manifesto stresses that the “criteria for safe countries shall be in line with the core obligations of the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European convention on human rights”.
It says that neither of the conventions “include the right to freely choose the country of protection”.
Developing the theme further, it says that after the “implementation of the third country concept”, it proposes the EU then “admit a quota of people in need of protection through annual humanitarian quotas of vulnerable individuals”.
The publication of the manifesto and the launch of the EPP campaign could be start of a tricky period for von der Leyen. “I don’t think she will have any difficulty among member states, but the parliamentary vote is another game altogether,” said one diplomat.
While very little legislation is left to negotiate, the bumps on the road to June act as a reminder of how von der Leyen came to power in 2019 – as a last-minute compromise candidate who was voted in with a wafer-thin majority five years ago.
