Brussels pledges to cover cost of migrant centers in EU countries

The centers are intended to fast-track the processing of migrants to determine, within 72 hours, those eligible to apply for asylum.

The European Commission on Tuesday detailed its plans to create and fund centers for processing migrants and asylum seekers in the EU and in non-EU countries, as part of a renewed bid to stem the political crisis sparked by migrant arrivals.

While the number of arrivals in Europe has plummeted since the peak of the crisis in 2015, migration as a political issue remains highly combustible, with a recent fight even threatening the government coalition of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The two papers published by the Commission Tuesday represent a first formal follow-up to the decisions taken by EU leaders at their summit in Brussels last month, where they committed to opening “controlled centers” to speed processing of migrants.

Leaders hailed their decision, reached after a through-the-night negotiation, as a major breakthrough. But so far no EU country has offered to host one of the new centers on its territory, despite promises of financial and technical support from Brussels.

EU diplomats will begin discussing the plans in a meeting on Wednesday, and major stakeholders, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), are scheduled to meet in Geneva on July 30.

One of the EU papers focuses on the controlled centers, which are expected to be created on EU soil by volunteer nations. Those centers are intended to fast-track the processing of migrants to determine, within 72 hours, those eligible to apply for asylum.

The Commission’s plan envisions “full financial support” for volunteering EU countries, including for infrastructure and operational costs, as well as financial support of €6,000 per person for countries accepting transfers of migrants.

For volunteer countries, the EU would provide border guards, interpreters, escort officers to manage returns, and staff to make flight arrangements from the EU’s Border and Coast Guard Agency. In addition, the European Asylum Support Office would provide up to 35 experts for asylum screening, and up to 35 more for processing, 50 interpreters or cultural mediators, as well as up to 25 experts to help with voluntary relocations. The EU would also pay €500 per person in transport costs to relocate migrants to countries volunteering to accept them.

The second Commission paper focuses on proposed “regional disembarkation platforms,” which would be created in non-EU countries with support and financing from Brussels. Potential partner countries include Tunisia and Egypt, although neither has yet agreed to host such facilities.

The disembarkation platforms would handle migrants who are rescued in non-EU or other international waters by third country vessels, while those rescued by EU-flagged vessels would be brought to the controlled centers on EU soil.

The EU is still working to identify coastline countries in Africa or elsewhere that would be willing to host the disembarkation platforms, under a plan devised mainly by UNHCR and IOM.

EU officials acknowledged that the process of developing the processing centers is just beginning and said they could not predict what if any deadline might be set for creating them. Meanwhile, they said EU officials would continue pressing for a full overhaul of the so-called Dublin regulation, which sets the EU’s asylum rules.

As of May, data collected by the Council shows that almost 26,000 migrants entered Europe by sea so far in 2018. The total number for the same period in 2017 was more than 50,000 arrivals and there were around 200,000 in 2016.