THERE is a pattern to European Union summits about subjects on which governments cannot agree. First, leaders stay up all night to signal their commitment. Second, they issue a statement sufficiently vague and contradictory to allow everyone to declare victory. Third, officials charged with implementing the agreement argue endlessly over how to interpret it. This sequence, described in a tweet by a former EU official, Shahin Vallée, perfectly describes the EU summit on illegal migration on June 28th-29th. The leaders battled into the pre-dawn hours on June 29th, but the tortuous phrasing of their conclusions—one sentence contained 12 commas—betrayed their inability to find meaningful compromises on the issues that continue to bedevil them.
As ever, the trickiest discussion was on how to share responsibility among governments for migrants who arrive in Europe. The leaders agreed, eventually, to establish...Continue reading
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