Migration ping-pong dominated the election campaign | iRADIO

The April approval of the pact at the plenary session of the European Parliament became the trigger for the current pre-election debate. At the time, the set of ten reforms of the EU’s migration and asylum policy was not supported by the majority of Czech MEPs for various reasons.

Listen to pre-election Brussels sandwiches. What topics will determine success in the European elections?

At home, the government and opposition parties began to argue mainly about whether the pact contains hidden quotas for the redistribution of asylum seekers and whether the Czech Republic is allowed an exception from aid to states affected by a strong wave of migration. In the end, the European Commission unusually entered the heated domestic debate and supported the government’s position.

Anna Urbanová compares the mutual finger-pointing between the opposition and the cabinet to “ping-pong, which has neither the one who throws the ball nor the one who reacts to the ball”. It alludes to the fact that the issue of migration at the European level was addressed both by the current government coalition of five and before it by the government of the ANO movement.

The responsibility for it is thus borne by both parties – the reform was in question for almost ten years. “If she didn’t approve now, she would fall under the table again,” warns the editor of the iROZHLAS.cz server.

Absurd and misinterpretable

“It seems absurd to me that the starting point of the Czech discussion is that accepting even a single refugee or a person who flees from the war to somewhere safe would be an absolute disaster,” Zdeňka Trachtová evaluates the domestic pre-election debate.

According to her, the topic of migration in the election campaign is easily misinterpreted and politicians often resort to various falsehoods. The Brussels correspondent recalls that during the migration crisis around 2015, it was the Czech government – ​​then composed of the Social Democracy, ANO and KDU-ČSL – that pushed for member countries to be able to help the affected states in ways other than accepting asylum seekers.

“Now we have another option on the table, namely mandatory solidarity, where member states can choose whether to accept migrants or help financially or materially. And even with that there is suddenly a problem,” he points out to another shift in opinion on the part of Czech politicians towards a sensitive European topic.

Castles in the air

Migration was already a significant topic in the campaign before the European elections in 2019.

“I have such déjà vu. Migration and opposition to Brussels were the connecting line of Eurocritical and Europhobic parties, which were very much heard at the time, and five years later we have it again,” notes Filip Nerad. Even then, support for these parties was expected to increase, just as polls suggest this year.

However, the former Brussels reporter is very skeptical of their promises to cancel the migration pact after the upcoming European elections.

“No one will want to interfere with it, because the compromise was negotiated in a complex way, and I can’t imagine that there will be a majority in the new European Commission and the European Parliament that wants to tear it down and build it again. I consider that to be practically impossible,” he says, adding that the critics are only promising castles in the air.

What topics resonate in other member states? How are the campaigns across Europe different and how are they the same? According to surveys, what do people actually want from the EU? And does it coincide with the offer served by politicians before the June elections?

Listen to pre-election Brussels sandwiches, the audio is at the beginning of the article.

Zdeňka Trachtová, Filip Nerad, Anna Urbanová, and

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