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The EU starts implementing its Pact on Migration and Asylum. Photo by RosZie on Pixabay

Brussels, 20 December 2023

The Spanish presidency of the Council and the European Parliament have reached a deal on the core political elements of five key regulations that will thoroughly overhaul the EU’s legal framework on asylum and migration.

The EU is delivering on its promise to improve the asylum and migration system. Citizens across the EU want their governments to deal with the migration challenge and today is a big step in this direction. This reform is a crucial piece of the puzzle. But the EU also remains committed to tackling the root causes of migration, working together with countries of origin and transit and adressing the scourge of migrant smuggling.

Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gómez, Spanish Minister for the Interior

The five EU laws that the Spanish presidency and Parliament have agreed on touch upon all stages of asylum and migration management, ranging from screening irregular migrants when they arrive in the EU, taking biometric data, procedures for making and handling asylum applications that also reinforce applicants’ rights, the rules on determining which member state is responsible for handling an asylum application and cooperation and solidarity between member states and how to handle crisis situations, including cases of instrumentalisation of migrants.

The new rules, once adopted, will make the European asylum system more effective and will increase the solidarity between member states by enabling to lighten the load on those member states where most migrants arrive.

Infographic – Migration flows: Eastern, Central and Western routes

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Next steps

Following today’s provisional agreement, work will continue at technical level in the coming weeks to flesh out the details of the new regulations.

After that the provisional agreement will be submitted to member states’ representatives (Coreper) for confirmation.

Background

All five regulations which are part of today’s political agreement are components of the new pact on migration and asylum which the Commission proposed on 23 September 2020. The Council has reached its position on these five laws in June 2022, June 2023 and October 2023 respectively and has since then been negotiating with the European Parliament to settle to agree on a common stance.

Source – EU Council


Statement by President von der Leyen on the political agreement on the Pact on Migration and Asylum

 

Brussels, 20 December 2023

Today, the European Parliament and the Council have reached a long-awaited political agreement on the Pact on Migration and Asylum.

First, I want to thank Vice-President Schinas and Commissioner Johansson, for all their tireless efforts and hard work that have gone into brokering this agreement.

Migration is a European challenge that requires European solutions.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants undertake perilous journeys to reach our borders. They are often the victims of criminals, smugglers and traffickers who lure them with false promises of safe passage and extort money from them.

Member States on our external borders need to manage illegal migration- often challenging their border protection.

At the beginning of my mandate, I made a commitment to establish a common system for managing migration in the EU.

This Pact on Migration and Asylum will ensure that there is an effective European response to this European challenge.

It means that Europeans will decide who comes to the EU and who can stay, not the smugglers. It means protecting those in need.

This Pact will also ensure that Member States share the effort responsibly, showing solidarity with those that protect our external borders while preventing illegal migration to the EU.

And it will give the EU and its Member States the tools to react rapidly in situations of crisis, when Member States are faced with large numbers of illegal arrivals or instrumentalisation when hostile countries deliberately attempt to destabilise the EU or its Member States.

Alongside the Pact, the Commission supports Member States through concrete, operational measures to deal with immediate challenges.

We are implementing concrete action plans to fight illegal migration through the Mediterranean, the Balkans or the Atlantic.

We are building partnerships with countries of origin and transit, to fight smugglers and traffickers and to ensure effective returns to their country of origin of migrants with no right to stay in the EU.

The key to effective management of illegal migration lies in the interaction between these two pillars.

A strong and effective legal framework offered by the Pact on Migration and Asylum.

And targeted action to further protect our borders, disrupt and destroy the operations of smugglers and work with third countries on mutually beneficial partnerships.


Caritas Europa: The EU must strengthen, not weaken, the asylum system

 

Agreement on Migration and Asylum Pact

 

Brussels, 20 December 2023

Today the European Parliament and the EU Council reached an agreement to reform the EU’s migration and asylum laws. After a series of difficult negotiations that have spanned several hours, co-legislators have worked through the night to reach common ground across five pieces of legislation that make up the new Pact on Migration and Asylum first presented by the Commission in 2020. The Pact includes a new Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, a new Screening Regulation, a new Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation, revised rules under the Asylum Procedures Regulation, and a revised Eurodac Regulation.

The S&D Group led the negotiations on behalf of the European Parliament on the crisis regulation and on the screening regulation. Juan Fernando López Aguilar, MEP, negotiated new rules, procedures and mechanisms to be triggered in crisis situations and Birgit Sippel, MEP, led negotiations on new rules to ensure everyone arriving in the EU seeking protection will undergo identity, security, health, and vulnerability checks. The S&D shadow negotiators were Pietro Bartolo, MEP, for the Asylum Migration Management Regulation, Sylvie Guillaume, MEP, for the Asylum Procedures Regulation, and Isabel Santos, MEP, for the Eurodac Regulation.

Iratxe García, S&D Group President, said:

“For several years, we have called for a more reliable and more European migration and asylum system that stands by our values of international protection, upholds the right to asylum and that is based on solidarity between member states. Everyone agrees that the status quo is unsustainable. Thanks to a window of opportunity opened under the Spanish Presidency and a dedicated team of S&D negotiators, today’s breakthrough signals that the EU is capable of reaching workable and common solutions on migration and asylum. That in itself is a big step in the right direction.

“We now have the basis for a system of mandatory solidarity for member states to share responsibility for people coming to the EU seeking protection. When this is signed into EU law, our collective responsibility is then to make sure that member states hold true to their solidarity commitments made under this new system. As well as solidarity between member states, we are also more committed than ever to show solidarity with those in need of international protection. With the new Pact we are able to protect the human dignity of people coming to Europe in despair, to respect their rights and to respect international law.”

Gaby Bischoff, S&D Vice President for Migration, said:

“As a co-legislator, you have an important responsibility to stay around the negotiating table and reach an agreement through compromise. Today, our focus was to deliver long-term reforms that work in practice and that share the responsibility that frontline member states shoulder. We felt a particularly strong sense of responsibility to reach an agreement before the end of the current Parliament mandate. In the EU, we share a common external border and we share a responsibility to agree on a common European asylum system.

“The agreement was years in the making and as result there has been a lot of pressure surrounding these negotiations in recent weeks. It was hard work and took a lot of determination of the negotiators from both the Parliament and the Spanish Presidency. Even more hard work and determination will be needed to implement the new rules on the ground and to make sure that fundamental rights, including the right to asylum, are fully respected.”

Source – S&D Group Press Release – Email


EU Commission welcomes the major progress achieved by Parliament and Council on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum

 

Brussels, 20 December 2023

The political agreement reached today by the European Parliament and the Council on the Pact on Migration and Asylum constitutes a major breakthrough towards a common system for managing migration in the EU.

The agreement covers five key proposals of the Pact:

  • Screening Regulation: creating uniform rules concerning the identification of non-EU nationals upon their arrival, thus increasing the security within the Schengen area.
  • Eurodac Regulation: developing a common database gathering more accurate and complete data to detect unauthorised movements.
  • Asylum Procedures Regulation: making asylum, return and border procedures quicker and more effective.
  • Asylum Migration Management Regulation: establishing a new solidarity mechanism amongst Member States to balance the current system where a few countries are responsible for the vast majority of asylum applications, and clear rules on responsibility for asylum applications.
  • Crisis and Force majeure Regulation: ensuring that the EU is prepared in the future to face situations of crisis, including instrumentalisation of migrants.

Once these proposals are formally adopted by the European Parliament and Council, the pillars of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum will be in place.

The Commission presented the New Pact on Migration and Asylum in September 2020, with the aim of finding long-term and sustainable solutions to managing migration. The Pact will create a legal framework that balances solidarity and responsibility between Member States, in a comprehensive approach to managing migration effectively and fairly .

President Ursula von der Leyen said:

“Europe is a strong community and capable of finding great answers to great challenges. I welcome the timely political agreement reached by Parliament and Council on the key elements of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. Our goal was to find a fair and pragmatic approach to managing migration together in the EU. It is a crucial step in making sure that Europe has the tools to manage migration.”

The agreement reached today reflects the commitment to manage migration in a fair and orderly way, allowing the Union and its Member States to move from ad-hoc to long-term and sustainable solutions. Until these new rules are fully applicable, the Commission stands ready to continue working with the European Parliament and the Council. The scope is clear, to ensure adoption on all Pact files by the end of this legislative mandate.

For More Information

Statement from President von der Leyen

State of Play New Pact on Migration and Asylum – factsheet

Website on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum

Quotes
Source – EU Commission

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