European Council: Disagreements and clashes on migration

The high-stakes European Council summit concluded on Thursday, with migration policy dominating the agenda.

For the first time, leaders discussed so-called “return hubs” — centres in third countries where migrants within the EU, whose asylum claims have been rejected and cannot be repatriated, would be held.

This, along with discussions around the European Union’s asylum and migration pact, set to be implemented in 2026, signalled that leaders were potentially radically rethinking how the bloc approaches migration.

However, final council conclusions made no mention of return hubs, and failed to provide a timeline for the EU’s new migration pact.

Leaders did, however, call on the European Commission to propose new legislation on deporting rejected asylum seekers still residing in the EU, and supported Poland’s call to give nation states the right to temporarily suspend asylum applications.

In a first, Ursula von der Leyen suggested that temporary and proportionate measures might be legally feasible

Also on the podcast, Radio Schuman looks at the first ever far-right Patriots of Europe pre-summit meeting with exclusive sound bites from Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders.

Finally, we ask where in Europe do people say they are the happiest? Spoiler alert: high rates of happiness tend to correlate with the amount of sun.

Radio Schuman is hosted and produced by Maïa de la Baume, with journalist and production assistant Eleonora Vasques, audio editing by Zacharia Vigneron and music by Alexandre Jas.