It is expected that the ideological shift of the migration issue – from humanitarian protection to security policy – ​​will once again confirm European Union two days emergency Summit (February 8-9) in Brussels. After all, all European countries treat this issue as a security issue, which is also evident from the main topic that will be put on the agenda of the negotiations of the heads of state and government, i.e. ways to control arrivals “across maritime or land borders”.

“We are facing a new, major immigration crisis,” Manfred Weber, chairman of the European People’s Party, recently told K, and the numbers may justify his forecast to a certain extent. European countries, including Norway and Switzerland, received more than 107,000 asylum applications last November, a record number since the 2016 migration crisis, and for the third consecutive month, nearly 100,000 applications. The arrival of illegal immigrants in the EU last year rose to its highest level since 2016.

However, the majority of centre-right governments in the EU at an extraordinary summit, according to Manfred Weber, would be satisfied if agreement was reached at least in principle on three issues: a. security of external borders, even with European funding for fencing, b. the adoption of a “common code of conduct” for NGOs conducting search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, and c. repatriation, which will be achieved through the implementation of readmission agreements with third countries.

And if the first is mainly about Greece, which is seeking European funding to expand the fence on Evros, then the other two seem to satisfy neighboring Italy and the Meloni government, whose party, however, is not a member of the EPP, despite this. the fact that his government partner is Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party.

The European centre-right appears to have a lot in common with Meloni’s handling of immigration. The Italian prime minister succeeded earlier in the year in introducing a new “code of conduct” for humanitarian ships, setting new ground in the Italian state’s protracted legal and political war against non-governmental organizations that rescue migrants in the Central Mediterranean. The new code of conduct provides for exorbitant fines for NGOs, up to 50,000 euros. That same month, Georgia Meloni traveled to Libya, where she signed an immigration agreement.

But is it only immigration that brings the EPP closer to Meloni’s position? Or the “agony” of a large centre-right group that should be intensified in the elections in connection with the European elections of 2024? However, the results of the EPP in the 2022 elections at the member state level were clearly disappointing, especially in Germany, the same happened in France. To balance the political “balance” within the EU. it seems that the EPP is looking for new potential and valuable “allies”.

What, however, could be the criteria for “flirting” to develop into permanent political relations or cooperation with parties that touch on the extremes of the European Right? Senior EPP officials admit in private conversations that possible frameworks for cooperation will include: a clear position in favor of the EU, Ukraine, the rule of law. However, these are precisely the conditions that seem to be being met, at least for the moment, by Georgia Meloni and her far-right Brothers of Italy party, especially with a 180-degree turn in the first 100 days in power that calms the markets and Brussels. .

If you expect something more from the summit than the wording that the EU requires it. a “holistic approach” to immigration is likely to be disappointed. However, for some others, the first “foundations” of promising political cooperation may be laid. After all, the battle for the 2024 European elections appears to have already begun.