Disputes about "solidarity": how the EU agreed to help migrants

A split is brewing in the European Union. The reason is the migration pact, which will determine the mechanism for granting asylum in 2026. Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic opposed the document: they refuse both to accept more migrants and to compensate other countries for refusing to do so. What this conflict will bring Brussels to — in the Izvestia article

Not everyone is happy with the decision

On Monday, December 8, the interior ministers of the EU countries met in Brussels to discuss the Solidarity Fund. It is one of the main elements of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact. The document caused controversy — several countries opposed it at once.

"The discussion was heated," said Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kervinsky. According to him, Warsaw has managed to ensure that it will not accept additional refugees and will not pay compensation to countries that are under migration pressure.

"Not all European countries are satisfied with these decisions. The countries of the South are unhappy," Polish media quoted the minister as saying.

Earlier, the European Commission officially recognized that Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus bear a disproportionately high burden due to the influx of refugees who enter these countries by sea.

To demonstrate solidarity, EU countries are offered three options for participation: to accept a certain number of asylum seekers, to make a financial contribution for each rejected person, or to finance countries with a large number of refugees. It is expected that a total of 21,000 people will be resettled next year.

However, even such a compromise has caused serious resistance. "I reject the absurd Pact on Migration and Asylum," Slovak Interior Minister Matusz Shutay-Esztok said on the eve of his trip to Brussels. He added that Bratislava opposes illegal migration and will not allow anyone to dictate whom it accepts on its territory.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that he will not pay "a single forint" for migrants and will not implement the migration pact. The Czech authorities also intend to request an exemption from the new rules. It has not yet been reported whether they, as well as Poland, have managed to free themselves from these obligations.

An uncontested measure

The migration pact does not solve the key problems of the European Union, Andrey Starikov, editor-in-chief of Baltnews. The initiative does not guarantee either a fair distribution of migrants or real control over refugee flows.

— People will tend to richer countries, where social support is higher. The EU cannot actually force them to stay, for example, in Latvia or any other country of first placement: freedom of movement within the Union remains, and corruption and weak verification of asylum applications only increase the chaos, the expert explained.

But there are no other solutions to the issue, Nikolai Topornin, director of the Center for European Information, said in a conversation with Izvestia.

— Any mass deportations are contrary to the basic principles of the EU and international law. This means that redistribution remains the only acceptable solution, no matter how controversial it may be," the Izvestia source points out.

According to him, additional mechanisms may appear in the EU to keep refugees in the countries where they will be resettled.

— These can be filtration centers, inspections, as well as adaptation programs: learning a language, getting a profession to include these people in the labor market. No one in Europe is interested in them becoming a socially dependent group," says Topornin.

He pointed out a paradox: on the one hand, the EU itself needs migrants because it is interested in labor. On the other hand, a significant part of the newcomers are women, children, and the elderly who need support and cannot work. As a result, this only puts a strain on social systems.

The threat of a systemic crisis

The migration issue has always been one of the most difficult in the EU. Refugees occupy a privileged position compared to other categories of migrants, which causes internal discussions about the fairness and effectiveness of the system, says Natalia Yeremina, Professor at St. Petersburg State University, in an interview with Izvestia.

At the same time, the problem of illegal immigrants in the EU does not disappear anywhere, the expert points out.

— It is important to understand that a systemic crisis arises not from one factor, but from a combination of several. Migration is only one of the elements, and it is not the main one in itself. However, together with other social, economic and political challenges, it increases the overall tension and contributes to the formation of a systemic crisis," Eremina notes.

The financial burden is increasing the tension: EU money is increasingly being spent on supporting Ukraine, and the previous system of "rich help poor" is gradually being phased out, Andrei Starikov believes. Therefore, according to him, the old migration contradictions are coming to the surface again. If earlier Brussels was ready to generously compensate for the costs of accepting refugees, now there are no such funds.

Experts interviewed by Izvestia agree that the EU's migration policy is likely to tighten in the future.

"The EU relies primarily on money: common funds, investments, mobility of capital and labor," Starikov emphasizes. — When this financial basis is undermined, internal contradictions will intensify. We are already seeing the growth of euroscepticism in Poland, Hungary and a number of other countries. Of course, the European Union will not collapse. But as financial flows decrease, the question "Why stay in the EU?" will sound louder and louder.