Why Brussels is seething at Italy, Germany and Austria’s migrant plans

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Good morning. Yesterday was a news-fest.

Portugal’s prime minister António Costa resigned after prosecutors revealed a massive corruption scandal involving his chief of staff. It has torpedoed the political career of someone previously seen as a potential candidate for some of the EU’s top jobs next year, and left the country in limbo.

And, a draft of the European Commission’s accession report for Ukraine, seen by the Financial Times and to be published today, recommends that EU member states support the country’s EU membership bid — although with the caveat that Kyiv should enact more reforms before setting a start date for negotiations.

Today, our correspondents in Berlin and Rome explain why Brussels is seething at Italy, Germany and Austria’s plans to send migrants to third countries, and our Paris bureau chief reports on a swath of corruption-related court cases rippling through French politics.

Outsourcing problems

Only weeks after EU countries clinched a compromise on asylum reform, Italy, Germany and Austria are pushing ahead with controversial plans of their own to send asylum seekers to third countries.

But they will probably face an avalanche of legal issues, write Sam Jones and Giuliana Ricozzi.

Context: Italy has announced that it will process the asylum applications by people rescued in the Mediterranean in Albania. Germany is also considering processing asylum claims outside its territory, following an announcement by the UK and Austria to collaborate on the issue.

The Italy-Albania deal has taken Brussels by surprise. The European Commission was informed only about an hour before it was announced, officials said. “I don’t like the way this has happened, it was nasty,” one senior EU official said.

Giorgia Meloni, however, has merrily brushed aside concerns. “We informed the European Commission about the plan and we did not receive criticisms,” she told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, describing the agreement as a “model of collaboration”.

She emphasised that Italy-funded reception centres in Albania would be staffed by Italian officials and “respect for human rights is fully guaranteed”. 

EU laws on asylum, including the reform currently being finalised by member states and the European parliament, stipulate that asylum seekers “shall be allowed to remain in the member state” during their asylum procedure.

This applies once people reach an EU country’s territory, including its territorial waters. It is therefore likely that Italy’s plan violates EU laws, on top of complications under international law, although the details are still unclear.

Germany is slightly more cautious, and the government has only promised to consider such a third country scheme. The idea has gained traction even among some Green and Social Democrat leaders, but Olaf Scholz’s government — despite having put the issue on the table publicly — behind closed doors still believes it to be unworkable.

The legal hurdles may prove insurmountable, experts in the interior and justice ministries say. And even if not, there is a practical problem: No suitable non-EU country will do a deal with Germany. 

According to Imogen Sudbery, director at the International Rescue Committee in Brussels, similar proposals in the past have not gone ahead because of “numerous flaws on moral, legal and practical grounds”.

“This decision also strikes a further blow to the principle of solidarity, which lies at the heart of a functioning European asylum system,” Sudbery said.

Chart du jour: Election season

The Netherlands is going to the polls at the end of the month. Upstart candidate Pieter Omtzigt and his three-month-old New Social Contract party currently top opinion polls, potentially paving the way for him to become prime minister.

Something’s rotten

In France, a number of high-profile politicians are facing charges in separate trials this week, casting a light on a judicial system that has historically struggled to hold public officials accountable, writes Leila Abboud.

Context: On Monday, sitting justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti appeared before a special tribunal that handles misconduct allegations. Yesterday, François Bayrou, a prominent centrist politician and ally of president Emmanuel Macron, defended himself in a case alleging that his party misused EU funds by having Brussels parliamentary assistants work in France.

And today, former president Nicolas Sarkozy faces a court in Paris to appeal against a conviction in 2021 for illegal campaign financing — only one of several corruption cases.

The three men deny any wrongdoing.

But the spectacle has prompted critics such as Transparency International to question the effectiveness of the justice system in dealing with the powerful.

Politicians in France are rarely jailed for wrongdoing and, unlike in some other countries, defendants are considered innocent until all appeals are exhausted. Given the slow pace of trials, that means that politicians can stay in office or prominent positions for years while the process drags on. 

Fabrice Arfi, a veteran investigative journalist at Mediapart, has chronicled many such cases. Last year, he wrote that there was “something rotten in France”. He added: “You can search high and low. No other major contemporary western democracy has such a record.”

What to watch today

1. European Commission presents EU enlargement report.

2. Eurogroup meets in Brussels.

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