German FM Baerbock warns against proposed EU crisis migration rules

Germany's foreign minister is speaking out against including so-called crisis regulations in reforms of EU migration rules, saying it could allow other European countries to send far more migrants toward Germany.

Annalena Baerbock's comments on Sunday come amid tense negotiations over a Common European Asylum System aimed at limiting the number of migrants allowed into the EU bloc.

Some countries have pushed to add a crisis regulation, which would give them more flexibility if particularly large numbers of migrants head to Europe, such as in 2015.

"Instead of orderly procedures, the wide discretion that the current proposal for a crisis regulation grants in the event of a crisis would de facto again create incentives for forwarding large numbers of unregistered refugees to Germany," Baerbock wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday.

She said the German government could not support such rules.

Depending on how the crisis regulations are applied along the EU's external borders, the emergency rules could lead countries where migrants first arrive to allow more to travel onward to Germany and other countries in the EU's more prosperous north.

The rules could also lead EU members to forcibly deport more migrants back to their home countries.

Previously, the German government had opposed adding the crisis regulation primarily out of concerns that the standard of care and accommodation for asylum seekers could be lowered too far.

Baerbock said she is working with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to make sure "German concerns are taken into consideration" so that a European asylum system "functions in the event of a crisis instead of opening the floodgates to chaos."

At the same time, Baerbock called for a swift adoption of the Common European Asylum System.

Justice and interior ministers from across the EU will meet in Brussels next week, with migration expected to be high on the agenda.

Last week, the European Parliament announced a temporary halt to negotiations over the planned asylum reform. Leaders of the European Parliament justified the move by saying that EU member states hadn't yet taken a position on the planned crisis regulation.

The delays could become an explosive political issue in European Parliament elections scheduled for June 2024.