MIGRATION IS ONE of the most pressing and contentious issues for the European Union, with attempts to overhaul rules across the bloc currently at an impasse.
“As long as we do not find common ground on how to manage migration, our opponents will continue to target that,” EU Chief Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament during her annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday.
She urged member states to find common ground and speed up the progress on the Commission’s Pact on Migration and Asylum which “has been painfully slow”.
The Commission proposed the Pact in September 2020, hoping to create faster migration processes and stronger governance of migration and border policies.
The issue is complicated by the fact that, while Brussels is meant to come up with overarching rules and legislation in this area, member states retain responsibility for decisions of who gets to stay and leave in their countries, and how they are carried out.
Not all countries are on board with that plan, particular those on Europe’s ‘frontline’. Since 2015, arrivals to the EU have been concentrated in Greece and Italy.
More recently, the eastern EU states of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have seen an influx of people, mostly from the Middle East, at their borders. The EU suspects that Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko is engineering the flow of migrants across the border in retaliation against increasingly stringent EU sanctions on his regime.
Ursula von der Leyen described Minsk’s actions as a “hybrid attack to destabilise Europe”.
“These are not isolated events. We saw similar incidents at other borders. And we can expect to see it again,” von der Leyen said, stressing that every country has a stake in building a European migration system.
She added that the pact on migration and asylum gives the EU everything it needs to manage “the different types of situations we face”.
But, what is the pact?
The Commission unveiled its plan to overhaul the EU’s migration and asylum system last September, having given up on the concept of a quota-based redistribution of asylum seekers among EU countries.
If passed by the European Council and Parliament, the plan would see tougher controls on the bloc’s external borders with mandatory pre-screening of asylum seekers, and “streamlined procedures” for expelling rejected asylum seekers. The EU says these mechanisms will allow it to investigate claims more efficiently and prevent overcrowding at the reception centres on its borders
The Pact proposes that EU member states that do not want to volunteer to resettle more migrants can instead take charge of sending those whose asylum requests are rejected back to their home countries.
In the proposal, frontline countries under excessive migratory pressure such as Italy and Malta can request the activation of a “compulsory solidarity mechanism”. All states will then be called on to contribute, according to their economic weight and population.
But under the solidarity mechanism, member states can choose how they contribute. They will be able to decide whether to receive asylum seekers, “sponsor” the return of migrants who do not have the right to stay, or help to build reception centres.
In the event of a large influx of people to the bloc, similar to that of 2015, the choice will be reduced to taking charge of relocating refugees or repatriating rejected migrants. But if an EU country fails to return migrants to their country of origin within eight months, it must take them in.
The pact would also introduce new pre-screening and border procedures which would allow member states to register, fingerprint people, and then channel them into asylum border return procedures. The aim of this proposal is to identify those who are unlikely to receive international protection as early as possible in order to prevent the “abuse” of member states’ asylum systems.
Another aspect of the pact is the EU’s aim of improving co-operation with key countries of origin and transit. It is hoped that greater co-operation with “third countries” would restrict the outward flow of migrants.
Since the early 2000s, the EU has reached re-admission agreements with 18 countries outside the bloc, including Turkey, Albania, Serbia and Pakistan.
Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, raised concerns about the pact, arguing that it risks “exacerbating the focus on externalisation, deterrence, containment and return”.
However, the future of the pact is still uncertain as difficulties remain in getting member states to agree on a common approach to a migration and asylum system, but von der Leyen believes it “ultimately comes down to a question of trust”.
“Trust between member states. Trust for Europeans that migration can be managed. Trust that Europe will always live up to its enduring duty to the most vulnerable and most in need,” von der Leyen said during her State of the Union address.
“There are many strongly held views on migration in Europe but I believe the common ground is not so far away. Because if you ask most Europeans, they would agree that we should act to curb irregular migration but also act to provide a refuge for those forced to flee.
“I am convinced that there is a way that Europe can build trust amongst us when it comes to migration.”
- Additional reporting from AFP
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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