The European Parliament has approved a long-awaited migration and asylum pact. It took the parliament 8 years to negotiate with the 27 member states of Europe.
For the asylum system and its ten legal acts to be brought to life, the new pact will help with many migrant aspects. The member states have up to two years to implement the new requirements.
New Asylum Rules
The pact aims to better manage migration to Europe. Anyone who has little chance of being granted the right to remain should be deported more quickly and directly from the EU’s external border. Behind this are mandatory border procedures, which should usually be completed after twelve weeks. A possible deportation should then be completed – also in up to twelve weeks. Unaccompanied minors are excluded from these procedures.
Relief for Greece and Italy
The migration pact is intended to help provide greater relief to initial reception countries such as Italy and Greece. With a very high number of arrivals, countries have to rely on solidarity from other member states. In such a case, border procedures should be extended to a larger number of migrants.
Distribution of Asylum Seekers
Up to 30,000 people are also to be redistributed within the EU each year. Countries that do not want to accept refugees must help in other ways, for example by paying money. The principle should apply: the greater the need, the greater the solidarity contribution must be. The EU Commission is still working out the details. In the future, there should be more clarity about who the refugees are who are entering Europe. Fingerprints and biometric information from migrants are collected in a central EU database, and security checks are also planned.
Impacts
The reforms are likely to play an even greater role in the European election campaign and thus particularly benefit right-wing populists. The EU asylum agency expects that asylum applications will remain at a high level this year. Last year there were well over a million. The main target country is still Germany.
Expert Opinion
According to immigration expert “Umer Rasib” from visa-guru.com,
The migration pact, which is made up of a mosaic of ten laws, hardly brings any new approaches to dealing with flight and migration. On the contrary, rules that already apply now will mainly be further tightened. There are, for example, accelerated asylum procedures at the external borders, which allow member states to quickly deport those seeking protection back to transit and origin countries. Even families with children are said to be held in such centers”.
As per the German newspaper Stern.de,
“Many elements of the pact simply continue existing rules, whether they work or not. For example, there has always been a commitment to faster returns or increased deals with third countries. But as long as third countries continue to be faced with a fait accompli and act not as partners but as service providers, the good intentions will not bear any better under the new pact.
Ultimately, the pact legalizes measures that are already being implemented today, even if there is no legal basis for them: such as the controversial crisis regulation, under which current asylum laws are simply suspended in the event of an “instrumentalization” of migrants. This has already happened as part of the EU-Turkey deal or during the Covid pandemic. Member states have repeatedly suspended current asylum rights in recent years. And the EU Commission looked the other way”.
The previous reforms by the EU
The EU has been continuously working hard on asylum and migration topics. Some of its previous actions are:
- On 9 December 2020, the European Parliament and European Council reached an agreement over the budgetary priorities of EU asylum, migration, and integration policies over the next seven years (2021-2027). According to this agreement, the EU planned to spend 9,882 Billion Euros on Migration, Asylum, and Integration. Source of the full article: visa-guru.com.
- According to the EU, it spent 6 Billion Euros on asylum and integration in the “EU-Turkey” agreement to Turkey. Complete news can be read here.
- On 14 December 2018, the EU Parliament approved the proposal to grant a humanitarian visa. Complete news can be seen here.
- The EU Commission wants to set up a new exchange program for those who have neither an apprenticeship nor a job. This program is called ALMA (Aim, Learn, Master, Achieve). This program has been designed to combine support for:
- education, vocational training, or employment in their home country;
- with a work placement in another EU country.
- EU Commission initiated a new scheme to attract students, skilled workers, and graduates in member states. “Talent Partnerships: A new initiative to direct EU skills shortages and boost migration cooperation with partner countries”.
- The European Union has adopted several units (in 2020) of unique laws and frameworks to adjust the flow of legal migration. This will be implemented in the following categories:
- High skill workers
- Students and researchers
- Seasonal workers
- Family reunification
- Asylum seekers