EU Pact on Migration and Asylum: EU Commission presents Common Implementation Plan

Remarks by Vice-President Margaritis Schinas:

Yesterday was a very important day. Given that we have had a lot of important and news filled moments in recent days, I will forgive you for not immediately knowing what I mean.

But yesterday, 11 June 2024, was the day the Pact on Migration and Asylum officially entered into force. Meaning that it is now a legal reality.

It also means that the clock has now started on a new deadline: we have exactly two years to make the Pact a practical and operational reality on the ground, by 11 June 2026.

The Pact, as you know, is thousands and thousands of pages of complex and highly technical legal text. The task to translate this into practice will be nothing short of Herculean.

And it will require a sustained effort from each and every one of our Member States.

Not all are starting from the same place – for example, some Member States already have experience with advanced screening procedures at the borders, others will need to work to put the necessary structures in place. Others still have a strong track record of streamlined workflows for processing asylum claims, but all will need to adjust to the new requirements, timelines and safeguards of the law.

But even if Member States are not starting from the same place, the objective is that we all cross the finish line at the same time.

To make sure that is the case, the Commission is today presenting a Common Implementation Plan for the Pact, mapping out all the milestones that need to be reached to get us from here to there in the next two years – which we will present to the Home Affairs Council tomorrow.

When it comes to the Pact, we will not give a hostage to fortune. We are making sure that there is a step-by-step plan in place to guarantee success.

Technically we are not obliged to present this Plan until September but we have chosen to frontload the work on our side to give more time to Member States, who have to present National Implementation Plans by December this year.

You will recall that when we presented the Pact back in 2020, we went to great lengths to ensure it was a product that all Member States could at least partially see themselves in.

And we are taking the same approach with implementation: this is not a top down, Brussels-telling-the-capitals-what-to-do-thing. It is a common endeavour, with joint ownership in all four corners of our Union.

Migration will be managed together, or it will not be managed at all.

To make the work digestible, we have broken it down into 10 thematic areas, which Ylva will explain to you in a moment.

And some elements, the Commission will already take forward as of now – we will for instance inaugurate the first solidarity cycle already next year. Meaning that for the first time, we will have predictable, in-built and legally binding support kicking in for Member States under the most pressure.

Giving life to a fundamental truth we have come to recognise as such over the last decade: that we are all in this together.

This in itself will be a game changer. As will the new streamlined screening and state-of-the-art external border management system being put into place.

And the Commission will be there every step of the way to accompany Member States over the next two years and beyond – putting all the operational and financial resources and expertise needed at the disposition of Member States.

As Ylva will explain, we will have dedicated support teams travelling to every capital between now and the autumn as well as a strong governance system in place to help bring the new requirements of the Pact to life.

But there is another element I want to mention – or rather reassure that we have not forgotten: the external dimension.

Whilst there are no formal legal obligations stemming from the Pact legislation on the external dimension, we have always been clear from the outset that we consider this dimension of the work of migration to be a fundamental pillar of the Pact and of a European system for managing our borders.

Migration does not start at our borders – so any credible migration policy has to take a whole-of-route and a whole-of-government approach to looking at migration flows across the length of the journey from country of origin to country of destination.

In the last five years, we have started to enact a paradigm shift in the way we handle our external relations. There is now a clear drive to embed migration alongside our other priorities when concluding partnership agreements with countries around the world.

This work is already starting to produce results. But it is crucial that this work continue.

We are therefore asking Member States to keep this on the top of their agendas, by factoring it into their National Implementation Plans, thereby renewing the joint commitment to a more pragmatic and assertive way of ensuring our own interests are reflected in the partnerships we maintain worldwide.

So those who thought that the next Commission will have nothing left to do on migration can think again. There is a lot of work to be carried forward to bring the Pact to life and to continue the work on the external side.

And whoever will sit in mine and Ylva’s chairs will certainly have their work cut out for them.

But I also hope they will appreciate the legacy we are leaving for them:

The Pact is the product of a historic agreement amongst all Member States and sustained by a broad, centrist majority in the European Parliament.

It is the living proof that we can govern from the centre and produce a Europe of results.

If you’ll allow me to conclude on a personal note, I am particularly proud of what we have achieved on migration this mandate.

When you think back to the situation we inherited, and the dire situation at our borders, with overcrowded reception centres and Member States barely speaking to one another on these issues.

Whereas today, the EU is better equipped and prepared than ever before to deal with the day-to-day management of migration, as well as face exceptional and unexpected challenges.

And the Pact stands as the embodiment of those centrist values: showing that we can be strong on border management, firm against abuses and ruthless against smugglers, whilst upholding fundamental rights, protecting the right to asylum and improving people’s rights, making the system better for the migrants and refugees going through it.

Thank you.

*****

Remarks by Commissioner Ylva Johansson:

The adoption of the Pact is a truly historic moment and just to take a look around us, globally, to see that how rare it is to be able to find an agreement to manage migration in an orderly way, to protect the fundamental rights but also to make sure that we protect our borders and that we manage migration together and in solidarity.

The Commission is obliged to come up with an Implementation Plan three months after the new Pact comes into force. We came up with this Plan one day after the new Pact came into force yesterday.

And the reason is, of course, that we are eager for the implementation. To be clear with you, it was difficult during the negotiations to reach an agreement, but we did. Both with the Member States and the Parliament, and now it will be equally as challenging with the implementation and we only have two years for this. So, it is going to be a lot of work.

The good news is that we are very well prepared, and Member States are very eager to start with the implementation. This implementation plan is in the format of a Communication, but it is not really a Communication as it is used to be from the Commission. This is really a blueprint or a working plan.

You can see that we go through exactly what Member States need to do and when they need to do it; or what the Commission needs to do and when we need to do it; what agencies need to do and when they need to do it. So, it is really operational, and this is a Common Implementation Plan, of course it is for all Member States and for the EU as a whole.

It has to be implemented by all, but we have to also be as flexible as possible which means it is not exactly identical everywhere. Of course the legislation sets the limits of flexibility but that is also the aim from me and my services to help Member States with their flexibility necessary.

To support Member States, we have re-organised a bit in DG HOME, so there is a senior official who is responsible for each Member State to make sure that they have one contact point who has access to all the expertise that might be necessary for the implementation.

You can see here on the screen the 10 building blocks of the Plan and how we have organised it. This is not a Smörgåsbord this is something you cannot pick and choose from.

All the ten building blocks have to be implemented because they are very closely linked to one another, as you can see with the different lines in here. They all have to be implemented because if you take out one, it will all fall down. So, this is important.

I will not go through all these but just to make a few comments, the first building block on the Common Information System, the Eurodac. This one is essential because that is where we register all migrants, and this will be important for the solidarity; this will be important for the continuum; this will be important to avoid secondary movement; but maybe this will be most important to avoid that children go missing.

Because this is a problem that we have today, especially with unaccompanied minors that could go missing going from one Member State to another. So, this is important for many reasons.

We have the Border Systems that include both the screening of all arrivals, but also the swift and seamless procedures for the asylum procedure, the border procedure and the return procedure. And this is, of course, very important for the rest to work very well.

For example reception, because with a well-functioning situation at the borders, with all the things we are doing to close the loopholes for secondary movements, we will have less pressure on the reception facilities which is important. This is also an opportunity to see better how to make them truly child friendly for example.

Also a few words on returns. It is essential that we return those that are not eligible to stay in the European Union and this has been a focus for me in the last years. You probably know that I have appointed a return coordinator and we have set up a special network of return. Experts from Frontex are doing a lot when it comes to returns, and we are starting to deliver.

Last year, we have returned 26% more people than we did in 2022 but overall, this is still a low return rate, only 19%. In the beginning of this year, the return rate is 25%, still too low, but we are on a steady way to make progress when it comes to returns and it is very important that this continues.

We can see also that when a Member State really addresses the return issue, like Cyprus did recently with the support of the Commission, they can do enormous progress. They doubled their return rate and is now one of the Member States with the best return system in the European Union.

I will also say a few words on how we will support Member States. Of course, we will use all our expertise and agencies will come in with a lot of different support, but we will also support the Member States financially.

Of course, Member States pay a lot for migration management from the national budget and they will need to continue to do so but we have a lot of additional money right now.

The mid-term review of the MFF will give an additional 1.6 billion for MFF and AMIF, which is the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, and this is money that had to be spent before 2027 that has not been allocated yet.

In addition to that, we had the MFF revision, additional 2 billion that the leaders decided at the beginning of this year, to give to the implementation of the Pact.

In addition to that we have resources also from our other DGs. For example, there is the possibility to also use money from the Cohesion Fund, from the ESF plus, the ERDF, and to especially mention DG REFORM which has technical support instruments that will now have a flagship initiative on support for the Pact implementation. And this is starting right now. So, we are actually allocating as much resources as we can to support Member States.

We are doing the same from the agency side. So, the EU Asylum Agency will have 100 new staff to help exactly with this implementation of the Pact. We have Frontex that will support. We have EU LISA that we are developing, for example for the new Eurodac. So, there is a lot of things that we will do to support Member States.

The last thing I would like to mention is that we are not starting from scratch. We have two very good things. One is the atmosphere among ministers. They are really working together with the implementation. If there were some differences, while we were negotiating; they were arguing for their specific angle.

Now, they are all focusing on the common challenges when it comes to the implementation. And then we are not just starting from scratch, for example, we already have 14 Member States that have started with the border procedures. We have 19 Member States that already issue negative asylum decisions, together with return decisions, which is part of the Pact. We have five Member States that have already digitalised return case management and 11 more that are on their way of doing so.

So, we have a lot of these things that we can build on. And Member States have asked us, the Commission, to help them to work together, those that are in the same situation or that are in a situation where they could support each other with the implementation.

And of course, we are ready from the Commission side to do so. I will present this Common Implementation Plan tomorrow in the JHA Council. It will not be a surprise because Member States have been deeply involved in the preparation, but I foresee that they will warmly welcome and endorse it.

Thank you.

Source – EU Commission