The regulation on the management of asylum and migration is the central piece of the pact. The aim is to have a comprehensive common European policy, which is currently lacking, since for the moment only ad hoc solutions have been applied in which each country decides whether it wants to help or not. With this, it is hoped to replace the so-called Dublin regulation, which obliges a person to request asylum in the first country they arrive. The crisis of 2015 and 2016 showed that it was very ineffective, when the countries that were on the front line regretted that they were alone in the face of the arrival of migratory flows.
The new rule advocates a principle of shared solidarity, in which all countries must contribute in some way to the management of the arrival of immigrants. Interior ministers reached an agreement on the regulation in June, with Poland and Hungary voting against it, under which the countries will be able to host at least 30,000 people each year in total, but will not be obliged to do so. Countries that prefer not to resettle anyone will have to contribute 20,000 euros each year per asylum seeker or by sending material or equipment.
Faced with a migration crisis, the European Commission proposed an instrument that can be activated in the event of pressure on a Member State. The instrument, approved precisely this week, repeals some of the obligations that countries have when it comes to managing asylum requests, as well as returns in the event of a large number of arrivals. Specifically, States will be able to prolong the detention of people who do not have the right to asylum in special centers for an additional eight weeks (currently it was 18 weeks). In addition, in crisis situations, the registration of people can be extended up to four weeks. In the event of a mass arrival of asylum seekers, a country can ask the other partners to support it with measures such as hosting refugees, so that they contribute with returns, or by sending ‘specialists at the border to help identification. The European Parliament, which voted its position in April, demands that solidarity between countries in the event of migratory pressure be a norm, and not an exception. For this reason, it bets on the mandatory reception quotas in the event of a crisis.
The regulation on “instrumentalization of migration” was proposed at the end of 2021, after the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko began to attract migrants mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen to Belarus and then force them to cross the European borders towards Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Travel agencies in the country guaranteed them a visa and promised them that they could easily enter the EU. In this way, many migrants ended up in no man’s land. European countries prevented them from entering, but they could not return to Belarus either.
The Commission proposed that the regulation be negotiated together with the crisis management regulation, as it is considered an extraordinary situation. In the text agreed by the countries this week, it was the most controversial point for Italy, since the text specifies that the activities of the oenagés “cannot be considered instrumentalization” when “there is no objective of destabilizing the EU or a Member State”. Rome, with the particular battle against non-governmental organizations, and despite everything, ended up accepting it this week, as the somewhat vague wording of the agreement allowed the Government of Giorgia Meloni to sell the pact among its public opinion .
The new directive on the asylum procedure proposes to speed up the procedure to manage applications. Only applicants who have not previously passed through other member states will be accepted. A procedure will also be applied whereby the applications of people who have false documents or of people who come from countries with an asylum recognition rate of less than 20% will not be accepted. The procedures may not be extended for more than four weeks. In addition, immigrants will have to stay in closed facilities. The management of requests also includes the issue of examinations that are carried out at external borders. After taking the fingerprints and data, you will have to proceed to the asylum application procedure; or, if that is not possible, a quick return to the country of origin. Returns are one of the issues the pact also focuses on. According to Eurostat, the EU orders approximately 400,000 people each year to return to their countries of origin, but only 30% of the orders materialize. A percentage that both the Commission and the countries want to reverse.
The European Commission has made it clear that it is one of the fundamental pieces for managing migration. Opting for more agreements, such as the one recently signed with Tunisia in the summer, controversial and controversial, which has raised unrest among some capitals. Despite everything, these pacts – which they want to replicate with Egypt, Morocco or Nigeria – are the ones that generate the most consensus both between the countries that are the main gateway (those in the south) and those of final destination (those in the north ). These are pacts in which, in exchange for money, you want to keep migration under control, but also facilitate investment and promote projects in those countries to contain flows. For now, the pact with Tunisia has not resulted in a lower number of arrivals and the country’s president, Kaid Saied, said this week that European aid is “ridiculous”.
The so-called refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016 uncapped the box of thrones in the European Union. It caused mistrust among partners and has opened wounds that are still unhealed today. After several attempts to find a solution that failed, Ursula von der Leyen’s Executive has wanted to cross and strike and put on the table a common policy that, first, promises to learn from the mistakes of the past; and, second, properly manage migratory flows. So, in September 2020 he proposed the pact on Migration and Asylum that the countries will have to start negotiating with the Eurochamber, after this week the capitals closed the last point that remained to be fixed: its position. The goal is to close it in the next three months. What are the key points of the pact?
