EU leaders left aside the days of strong unity and are now getting ready for difficult talks during the first semester of 2018, when Bulgaria is going to hold the rotating presidency of the Council.
Heads of state and government will have to weigh new measures to deal with migration, after the last Summit for 2017, while both the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council Donald Tusk are at one point - migration vote could divide member states, and the EU institutions do not want that. EU leaders are supposed to reach a decision on this reform, also known as the Dublin regulation, by next June.
“As for the unit, I cannot have to say it has to be preserved as it has not been preserved, but [it has to] to be reestablished,” said Juncker during the press conference at the end of the 14-15 December EU Summit.
The prospect of EU states going to a vote next June on a deeply-disputed measure to impose mandatory asylum-seeker quotas on member states, is more likely than ever, as December has sparked flame to a well hidden struggle. "I am not a fan of qualified majority decision-making but it is in the treaty," Juncker told journalists, as the Visegrad four, composed of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia keep refusing Germany and Italy’s quotas concept.
"Will a compromise be possible? It appears very hard but we have to try our very best," added Tusk, that kept supporting his opinion - that the quotas system is insufficient. “I didn’t change my mind, at all,” he added, as what matters to the EU Council has is effectiveness. According to his own words, this is “the effective and main condition to establish control and migration policy”.
“I have no doubt - this is a harsh reaction,” Tusk said. “The best illustration that the topic of the mandatory quotas,” he said, is that “this is not the solution of the problem - this is the most time consuming part on talks” instead. At his own view, “to keep EU united in a set of effective reactions, we need a practical solution of our solidarity”.
Dismissing the European Commissioner for Migration attacks, Tusk added that him as the EU Council president is “not here to represent just one point of view.“ According to Tusk, he cannot from his position take the side of the EU Council president being European if he agrees with the biggest member states, neither taking the side of his home region.
As for the qualified majority vote, Tusk agreed that it can be used, even though it is “ not the synonym in solidarity in politics”.
Juncker also went into damage control mode, after days of not commenting Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos’ quotes on Tusk from Strasbourg. Avramopoulos, labeled Tusk "anti-European" for describing relocation as "highly divisive" and "ineffective".
According to Juncker, that is not the case: ”Donald Tusk is not anti-European, he is a pro-European," he said. "I know that Avramopoulos as a good Commissioner and I think this is a real misunderstanding," he added. As for Tusk, he acknowledged the difficult role of a Commissioner.