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5 summit subplots to watch

EU leaders try to put the ‘Union’ back in European Union.

EU leaders have struggled for months to show decisive action in dealing with a migration crisis that even Europe’s biggest cheerleaders say threatens the very existence of the Union.

They are now set for yet another attempt to show unity in yet another emergency summit on the issue.

There are no guarantees that Wednesday’s “extraordinary, informal” meeting will produce anything other than the usual ordinary, overly formal platitudes. If anything, in recent years EU summits have been more about stirring up problems than fixing them.

Here are five subplots to watch as the summit unfolds — or unravels:

Well now what?

EU governments used a “nuclear option” they’d hoped to avoid in pushing through the refugee relocation plan in a meeting of interior ministers Tuesday. In doing so, they trampled over the wishes — and, some argue, the sovereignty — of several countries that were dead-set against the plan.

The challenge now will be to calm angry political leaders and convince everyone to hug it out. Only then will summiteers be able to get to their main agenda item for the meeting: to deal with the roots of the migration problem and to show that Europe is tackling the issue effectively.

EU officials say the summit will aim for an agreement to strengthen EU border protection — a sop to the countries that were outvoted Tuesday — and to work more closely with Turkey to make sure that conditions improve in refugee camps there and help keep people from heading to Europe.

The numbers game of the past several months — How do we get to 40,000 refugees? How do we get to 120,000? Who gets the 54,000 nobody wants? — is largely over. As Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker put it in his State of the Union address earlier this month, the challenge now is to put the “Union” back in European Union.

Eastern promises

Finding that solidarity will be tough after Tuesday.

While diplomats said the tone of the interior ministers’ meeting was “civilized,” the outcome essentially overrides the wishes of several countries and forces them to welcome asylum-seekers.

The immediate reaction from at least one leader was defiance — even though EU law requires compliance.

“As long as I am prime minister, mandatory quotas will not be implemented on Slovak territory,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico told his parliament’s EU affairs committee Tuesday.

Also sure to be a major topic at the dinner: the actions taken by Hungary in response to the refugee influx — from building walls along its borders to using water cannons and tear gas on crowds of migrants attempting to enter the EU.

Many European politicians have been critical of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for using force against asylum-seekers. Some are even calling on the EU to invoke “Article 7” of the EU treaty, which imposes sanctions against countries that fail to show “respect for and promotion of the values on which the Union is based.” That’s yet another “nuclear option”; the last time the EU tried to isolate one of its member states, Austria under far-right leader Jörg Haider in 2000, the effort was seen as politically counter-productive.

At their summit, leaders are more likely to put political pressure on Orbán before any formal sanctions would be needed.

“Closing borders is not a solution,” Juncker said Tuesday in a thinly veiled reference to Orbán’s actions. “If you have survived bombing and a rubber boat in the Mediterranean, a fence will not stop you.”

Another side-effect this week was the fracturing of the Visegrad group of central European countries: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. The quartet had maintained a solid line against mandatory quotas for refugees, but by Monday night Poland’s position had softened (under pressure from Germany and France) and on Tuesday it voted with the majority to support the plan.

The vote wasn’t needed for adoption, but its symbolic value was high.

The Anglo angle

The Brexit issue will also find its way into the dinner conversation — even though the U.K. has played its “Get of Out of EU Policy Free” opt-out card and won’t have to take part in the refugee relocation plan.

More generally, the migration issue goes to the heart of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s arguments about the need for EU reforms ahead of the U.K.’s planned vote on whether to stay in the Union. He has said the EU’s rules on free movement of people — and jobs — need to be revisited.

The issue has also been politically combustible in Britain, as tabloids focus on the migrants massed in Calais trying desperately to cross the English Channel.

Cameron has already paid visits to most EU leaders to talk about the Brexit issue, and has lately been sending emissaries to Brussels to sound out areas where there is room for maneuver on reform.

He’s also scheduled a meeting with Tusk for Thursday morning, perhaps a good occasion to pick up the pieces from the night before.

Which Merkel shows up

Angela Merkel’s uncharacteristic wavering on the migration issue in recent weeks — first announcing that Germany would welcome huge numbers of asylum-seekers, then deciding to shut borders — raises the question of which version of the German chancellor will make an appearance.

Along with French President François Hollande, Merkel has sought to show strong leadership, and put pressure on other member states to act. The summit itself is a party she decided to hold, after phoning up Tusk last week and more or less instructing him to call it.

But Merkel may be paying a price at home for her visibility on the politically thorny migration issue, as new poll numbers show her approval ratings dropping to new lows for the year.

The Tusk or Juncker moment?

Team Tusk or Team Juncker? That’s been a key dividing line in Brussels since May, when the European Commission first put forward its ambitious proposals for dealing with the refugee crisis.

The numbers that caused so much anguish back then — 40,000 migrants shared among all EU member states — seem almost quaint now, with thousands of refugees pouring into Europe every day. But the split remains over how to get countries to act, and the EU’s decision Tuesday to move ahead without consensus means there’s no turning back.

Will Juncker be able to claim a victory in getting the EU to act, even over the objections of several countries? Or will Tusk be able to say “I told you so” if there is a complete breakdown in European solidarity as a result of the decision on relocation?

The last summit on migration descended into an all-night shouting match between countries that sided with either Juncker or Tusk. Their joint press conference afterward was notable for the frostiness and tension between the two men.

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The looks on their two faces late on Wednesday night, after the dinner table has been cleared and the summit is over, will be the first indication of whether Europe has found its elusive unity.