On May 14, EU member states took the last hurdle to a stricter, controversial migration and asylum pact after nearly a decade of wrangling. The overhaul comes into force from 2026. However, 15 EU countries already expressed a desire to clamp down on illegal migration even further in a letter to the European Commission on Wednesday.
Fierce debate.
The EU on Tuesday gave the final green light to a landmark overhaul of its migration and asylum policies that will see hardened borders and responsibility shared among member states.
EU officials had been at pains to wrap up the migration reforms ahead of European elections scheduled for June. The issue has been politically divisive, especially since an influx of arrivals in 2015 that exposed the migration system's weaknesses.
The new body of law is the product of years of fierce debate, which came to a head in a tense European Parliament vote in April.
The overhaul consists of ten pieces of legislation, which were supported by the vast majority of EU member states. Hungary and Poland voted against the entire package and countries such as Austria and Slovakia opposed particular parts. The Czech Republic, also a critic of the pact, abstained from all ten votes.
Following confirmation by the EU countries, the new pact will now be published in the official EU journal. The member states will then have two years to put the rules adopted on Tuesday into practice. The European Commission will soon present a common implementation plan to help the member states in this process, the Belgian EU presidency said.
The new laws require all 27 EU member states to take some responsibility for managing asylum applications - including those who voted against the reforms - but the package also makes the rules stricter for applicants. It establishes new border centres that will hold irregular migrants while their asylum requests are vetted. Deportations of those deemed inadmissible will be accelerated.
"These new rules will make the European asylum system more effective and increase solidarity between member states," said Belgium's asylum and migration minister Nicole de Moor.
European Council president Charles Michel called the legislation "a milestone in the EU's response to manage migration and reform the system" on X, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a "historic agreement".
In contrast to that, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala stated that while the pact was a first step towards tackling illegal migration, it was not enough. He said that's the reason why the Czech Republic has co-founded a group of countries that want to tackle illegal migration more strongly.
A sentiment shared by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen who called the current situation with migrant flows towards Europe "unsustainable" during a conference on migration challenges on May 6 in Copenhagen. The pact is drawing criticism from migrant rights charities, some nationalist governments and researchers for different reasons. Rights group Amnesty International, for example, argued that it will "lead to greater human suffering".
Migration researcher Judith Kohlenberger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business stated in an interview with the Austrian Press Agency that the reform was completely ignoring the fight against the causes of flight. "On the one hand, we are fending off refugees, while on the other we are constantly helping to create the reasons for flight - see the consequences of the climate crisis or economic policy. Europe is contributing to flight and labour migration," emphasised Kohlenberg.
According to her, the only positive thing about the EU asylum and migration pact, which is to be implemented over the next two years, is that the 27 member states have finally managed to reach a compromise on migration policy.
"It would have been a declaration of bankruptcy by the EU Commission if there had been no progress here." This would play into the hands of the right-wing parties in the EU elections in June.
The EU elections are expected to see a surge by far-right parties campaigning on the need to crack down on irregular migration. The far-right Swedish Democrats - a member of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament - for example chose "My Europe is building walls" as their main slogan for the upcoming European elections.
Petar Volgin, an MEP candidate for the far-right Bulgarian Vazrazhdane Party, said in an interview on Tuesday that "flooding" the country with migrants or, alternatively, "paying exorbitant sums to keep them from coming here in the name of [Bulgaria joining the Schengen Area for air and sea travel]" must be taken out of the picture. Only then Bulgaria could reinstate its national sovereignty and strengthen its economy.
Fabrice Leggeri, former Frontex executive director and third on the list of the French far-right National Rally party for the European elections, said he saw the June vote as "a referendum".
Frontex is the EU agency responsible for borders. Leggeri also rejected the idea that Frontex is a "super humanitarian NGO" in an interview with Portuguese news agency LUSA, rather advocating for "pragmatism" in migration management.
Eurostat: Asylum applications in Europe on the rise.
Asylum applications in Europe are on the rise, according to Eurostat data. In 2023, 1.048.900 first-time asylum applicants were recorded which is an increase of 20 percent compared to 2022 (873.700), almost reaching the highs of 2015 and 2016.
The highest number of first-time asylum applicants in 2023 in comparison to the population of each member state, was recorded in Cyprus (13 applicants per 1.000 people), followed by Greece and Austria (both six applicants per 1.000 people).
Solidarity Mechanism: Take people in or pay up.
The mechanism is intended to relieve the burden on those countries where many refugees arrive - for example Italy, Greece or Spain. The plan is to redistribute at least 30,000 refugees from these countries to other EU states each year. If the countries do not want to take in refugees, they must provide support to the under-pressure nations, for example in the form of cash payments.
In Slovenia, for example, this could mean that the country would likely have to take in 126 persons or contribute 2.8 million Euro annually.
Slovakia has expressed its dissatisfaction with the new mechanism through its vote: The country voted against two proposals of the ten-point reform package - against the payment of 20,000 Euro for each unaccepted migrant and against compliance with certain asylum obligations - and abstained on eight less fundamental proposals.
"In particular, we did not agree on things such as the fact that if we refuse to take in migrants, we have to pay 20,000 Euro.
From Slovakia's point of view, the situation is still good today. With around 30,000 migrants to be redistributed, the impact on Slovakia would be around six million Euro, but with mass migration it would be tens of millions," Slovak Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenickì explained after the vote.
The biggest problem for Slovakia is that the new pact does not mention a financial ceiling for such payments.
Deals with third countries on the rise: 15 EU states demand further tightening of rules.
In parallel with the sweeping reforms, the EU is stepping up its deals with countries of transit and origin aimed at curbing the number of arrivals.
In recent months, that has seen agreements inked with Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt. Other examples of the trend towards outsourcing migration policies in Europe are the British Rwanda model or the bilateral Italy-Albania agreement. It entails sending migrants rescued in Italian waters to Albania while their asylum requests are processed. In February, the Albanian Parliament approved a draft law about tighter cooperation with Italy regarding migration. Through a joint letter to the European Commission, dated May 15, fifteen EU states have demanded a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, making it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, including when they are rescued at sea. The letter cited the example of the arrangement it made with Turkey in 2016 to take in Syrian refugees from the war in their home country.
The coalition of countries was put together by the Czech Republic together with Denmark and Austria. The letter, which was signed by 15 interior ministers, was delivered to Brussels on Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for the European Commission confirmed on Thursday.
According to her, the Union executive will now deal with its content. In addition, it will also deal with the implementation of those legislations that are included in the recently adopted migration package.
Signatories include Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania and Finland.
Italy and Greece receive a substantial number of the people making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to reach the EU - many seeking to escape poverty, war or persecution, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Experts: Outsourcing needs clarification.
The new migration and asylum pact proposals such as third-country pacts will fall to the next EU executive which will take office after the European elections.
Camille Le Coz, an expert from the Migration Policy Institute Europe, said that there were "many questions" about how any such initiatives could work.
Under EU law, immigrants can only be sent to a country outside the bloc where they could have applied for asylum, provided they have a sufficient link with that country. That rules out - for now - any programmes such as the United Kingdom's deal with Rwanda to send arrivals to the African country.
Le Coz said that it still needs "to be clarified" how proposals for any EU outsourcing deals would work as well as "who the European authorities are working with and which third countries are likely to accept".
Henrik Emilsson, migration researcher at Malmö University, also classifies the idea of handling the asylum process outside of the EU as "political slogans" rather than something that can be done, at least on a short term. According to him, asylum centres outside the EU might even need a treaty change.
(The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP, ANSA, APA, ATA, BTA, CTK, dpa, EFE, Europa Press, LUSA, Ritzau, STA, TASR, TT).
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