The European Union response to the 2015 migrant crisis focused on how the countries organized the efforts in response to the 2015 European migrant crisis at the EU level. The European Commission in May 2015 proposed distributing the incoming refugees based on GDP and population. This proposal was divisive with Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic refusing any refugees. Some nation states then called on the EU to reduce funding for member countries who did not want to share burdens and didn't share "values...need to start asking themselves questions about their place in the European Union". This attempt to coalition build failed, the European Commission proceeded to strengthen existing systems such as the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), reforming the Dublin Regulation and centralizing the asylum process. There was also challenges to the European borders which came from the Mediterranean Sea; as a response the European Border and Coast Guard Agency engaged in a new operation called Operation Triton.
Politically there was a debate on limiting refugee admittance and a general debate regarding the integrity of borders and illegal actions. Migration policies were also reformed and discussed at the EU level such as the Valletta Summit on Migration which resulted in the Emergency Trust Fund at the European Level.
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Political positions
Throughout the crisis the opinion of the member states was highly divided. German Chancellor Angela Merkel considered that the lack of cooperation jeopardized the core EU principle of the freedom of movement principle and the Schengen Area. This sentiment was echoed by Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi. A willingness to welcome immigrants was also echoed by Theresa May."Mother Angela: Merkel's Refugee Policy Divides Europe". Der Spiegel. 21 September 2015. French prime minister Manuel Valls also pointed to need for cooperation between the European Commission, member states and candidate states.
However, despite the statements of cooperation the differing approaches of members states was made apparent when former French president Nicolas Sarkozy criticized the EU Migrant plan as well as the welcoming of migrants policy, indicating a fear that migrants would end up in France due to the freedom of movement and the strong welfare. His solutions involved a reformation of the Schengen area. This differed from German policy which was very welcoming towards immigrants.
At the European Parliament level Sergei Stanishev president of the Party of European Socialists indicated the need for a European mechanism for the distribution of migrants.
Attempted reforms There was various proposals presented by the commission. The May and September 2015 proposals suggested a redistribution quota. In April 2015 they drew up 10-point plan which was drawn up in response to a deadly shipwreck on April 19. In June 2016 it also drew up a reformed plan for the Dublin Regulation.
Distribution of asylum seekers among EU member states In May 2015, the European Commission presented the European Agenda on Migration. In it they proposed distributing refugees from Syria, Eritrea and Iraq across EU states based on their GDP and population., with the possibility to opt out of hosting and instead contribute money for resettlement. This plan was contentious and in the end was not implemented as decisions by the European Commission generally require unanimity.
In September 2015 the Commission proposed a new plan redistributing 120,000 refugees. The plan proved extremely divisive. There was a marked difference in the response of Eastern European and Western European member states. Eastern countries such as Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic declared their intention to defy the decision and refused to accept any refugees at all. Viktor Orbán began claiming that the EU was planning to flood Hungary with immigrants. The Czech echoed this negative sentiment when the Secretary for European Affairs Tomáš Prouza commented that relocated people would eventually leave regardless . Western European politicians, particularly from countries with historically high refugee intakes, criticized what they saw as these member states' intransigence."Refugee crisis reveals fundamental splits in European political parties". EurActiv. 24 September 2015. Berlin called for the EU to reduce funding for member countries that blocked burden-sharing initiatives."Berlin calls for sanctions on EU states that reject refugee quotas". Deutsche Welle. 15 September 2015. French President Hollande declared, "those who don't share our values, those who don't even want to respect those principles, need to start asking themselves questions about their place in the European Union."
In September 2017, the European Court of Justice dismissed legal actions brought by Slovakia and Hungary against the redistribution system. Nevertheless, the Commission, in the face of continuing opposition abandoned the idea in 2020, although several thousand refugees did ultimately end up being resettled to willing countries.
Reform of the Dublin regulation The Dublin Regulation was criticised for placing too much responsibility for asylum seekers on member states on the EU's external borders (especially Italy, Greece, Croatia and Hungary), instead of sharing responsibility among EU states. In June 2016, the European Commission proposed reforms to the Dublin Regulation.
Centralized processing of asylum applications In April 2015 the European Commission presented 10-point plan which called for the European Asylum Support Office to deploy teams in Italy and Greece to process asylum applications. This was proposed with the aim to eliminate the need for dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossings. On 12 December 2015, it was reported that Frontex had been maintaining combined asylum seeker and deportation hotspots in Lesbos, Greece, since October.
Rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea
Government operations In 2014, Italy had ended Operation Mare Nostrum, a large-scale naval search-and-rescue operation to save stranded migrants in the Mediterranean, saying the costs were too large for one country alone to manage. The Italian government had requested additional funds from the EU to continue the operation but did not receive sufficient support. The UK government cited fears that the operation was "an unintended 'pull factor', encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and contributing to drownings. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency took over search and rescue operations throughout the Mediterranean under the name Operation Triton, although its budget, equipment and mandate were far more limited than Mare Nostrum. On 18 May 2015, the European Union launched a new operation based in Rome, named EU Navfor Med, under the command of the Italian Admiral Enrico Credendino, to identify, capture and dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers. By April 2016, the operation rescued more than 13,000 migrants at sea and arrested 68 suspected smugglers."On the Mediterranean refugee patrol with the Bundeswehr". Deutsche Welle. 22 April 2016.
Non-governmental organizations Non-governmental organizations often filled the vacuum when Italian or EU operations were insufficient to rescue migrant boats in the Mediterranean. Some Italian authorities feared that rather than saving lives, the NGO operations encouraged more people to use the dangerous passage facilitated by human traffickers. In July 2017, Italy drew up a code of conduct for NGO rescue vessels delivering migrants to Italian ports. These rules prohibited coordinating with human traffickers via flares or radio and required vessels to permit police presence on board. More controversially, they also forbade entering the territorial waters of Libya and transferring rescued people onto other vessels, which severely limited the number of people NGOs could save. The Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticised the code of conduct and some NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, eventually suspended rescue operations. In the years following its implementation, Mediterranean Sea crossings dropped considerably, although the degree to which this was caused by the NGO code is disputed. A study conducted from 2014 to 2019 concluded that external factors like weather and the political stability of Libya contributed more to the ebbs and flows of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
In September 2016, Greek volunteers of the "Hellenic Rescue Team" and human rights activist Efi Latsoudi were awarded the Nansen Refugee Award by the UNHCR "for their tireless volunteer work" in helping refugees arrive in Greece during the 2015 refugee crisis.
April 19 shipwreck After 700 migrants drowned following a shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea on April 19, EU leaders called for an emergency meeting of European interior ministers. The prime minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, called the 19 April shipwreck the "biggest human tragedy in recent years". Aydan Özoğuz, the German minister for immigration, refugees, and integration, said that emergency rescue missions in the Mediterranean should recommence as more migrants were likely to arrive as the weather turned warmer. "It was an illusion to think that cutting off Mare Nostrum would prevent people from attempting this dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean", she said.
A previously scheduled routine meeting of EU foreign ministers the day after the shipwreck was dominated by refugee policy and preventing migrant deaths. The same day, the European Commission published a ten-point plan to address deaths in the Mediterranean Sea, which doubled the size and budget of Operation Triton and called for capturing or destroying smuggler boats. On April 23, EU leaders held an emergency summit, where they agreed to triple the budget of Operation Triton to €120 million for the year. Ireland and the United Kingdom both committed patrol boats and helicopters to the rescue effort. Amnesty International criticised the EU's response as "a face-saving not a life-saving operation" and said that "failure to extend Triton's operational area will fatally undermine today's commitment". The EU sought to increase the scope of EU Navfor Med include patrols inside Libyan waters in order to capture and dispose of vessels used by smugglers there. Land operations on Libya to destroy vessels used by smugglers had been proposed, but such an operation would have needed UN or Libyan permission.
Limiting refugee admittance Around November 2015, some European countries restricted family reunions for refugees, and started campaigns to dissuade people worldwide to migrate to Europe. EU leaders also quietly encouraged Balkan governments to only allow nationals from the most war-torn countries (Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) to pass into the EU.
Throughout the crisis, many countries experienced public debates on whether to limit the number of asylum applications they would accept. Proponents argued that such measures were necessary because no country had the capacity to absorb unlimited numbers of refugees, and that limiting refugee inflows would give countries space to deal with the influx properly. Opponents, most notably German chancellor Angela Merkel, argued that limiting the numbers of refugees would undermine the principle of asylum, contravene national or international laws and be physically unworkable. Others noted that the numbers of people arriving was small relative to most EU countries' populations. Some drew parallels to previous refugee waves, such as during World War II when many countries set limits to refugee admissions from Europe, abandoning many victims of Nazism.