After two days and nights of difficult trilogue negotiations, the European institutions came to a preliminary agreement on the five remaining legislative chapters of the Migration and Asylum Pact, the EU’s flagship migration management framework that has been in the works for years.
Brussels’ establishment hails the deal as a just and balanced compromise, but conservative lawmakers criticized the agreement saying that it will hardly put an end to unrestrained mass migration to Europe.
The five tracks agreed upon on Wednesday include new screening and asylum procedures that will allow member states to more effectively identify and turn back economic migrants who do not qualify for international protection.
Furthermore, invoking force majeure will allow frontline countries to bypass certain restrictions (such as maximum detention periods) and speed up deportations when encountering a sudden influx of migrants, as well as receive further funds to construct protective infrastructures at the external borders.
At the same time, the ‘mandatory solidarity mechanism’—forcing countries to choose between accepting migrants or paying hefty sums into a common fund—remains part of the package, while the redistributions’ pre-agreed upper limits would essentially be scrapped in crisis situations.
While saying the agreement was a step in the right direction, conservative MEP Nicolaus Fest (ID) commented that it “will hardly change anything” with regard to unrestrained mass migration. In a statement sent to The European Conservative, Fest stressed:
There is no agreement to consistently return illegal migrants. Illegal migration continues to be seen [by Brussels] as a natural phenomenon that must be countered with ‘management’ and redistribution– the redistribution of migrants and money within Europe. And neither are the pull factors reduced nor are the countries of origin being held responsible.
“Today is truly a historic day,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said at the follow-up press conference on Wednesday morning. Metsola said delivering on “possibly the most important legislative package of this mandate” was “a huge success for the constructive pro-European center.”
By “pro-European center,” Metsola meant the center-right EPP, the social democrat S&D, and the liberal Renew, the three parties that together hold a majority in Brussels and are mostly responsible for this breakthrough.
Those outside this center coalition—the Greens and The Left on one hand, and the sovereigntist ECR and ID on the other—seem to be equally disappointed in the outcome. The leftists think the agreed rules would not protect asylum seekers enough, while the Right sees the New Pact as an instrument to force them to accept migrants into their countries.
However, the outcome of the negotiations—between the parliamentary rapporteurs, the Council’s Spanish presidency, and representatives of the Commission—is still just a preliminary agreement that needs to be put to vote again both in the Strasbourg plenary and in the European Council.
“Beyond fair share”
While the Pact will not have a problem passing in the plenary (since the above-mentioned three parties are already on board), the Council—or even a single member state—might still delay or block the implementation by denying unanimous consent.
Two of the five tracks will be particularly hard to get all 27 member states aboard. Both the asylum and migration management regulation (AMMR) and the crisis management (or force majeure) regulation contain elements of the proposed solidarity mechanism that would enable the Commission to impose compulsory migrant redistribution on EU countries.
Under normal circumstances, the ‘solidarity pool’ of annual migrant relocations remains capped at 30,000 asylum-seekers annually for the whole bloc, distributed to all member states based on population size. The initially planned “contribution” of €20,000 per migrant from those who are unwilling to accept their share remains unchanged as well.
What’s different—on request of the Council—is that the individual decisions of member states on whether to accept migrant reallocations or pay up will not be made public, “but we still want to make sure that the European Parliament is informed,” MEP Tomas Tobé, the EPP’s rapporteur noted, adding that this question will be further addressed during the finetuning in the following months.
The crisis management regulation, however, will change the solidarity mechanism as well. And given the constant migratory pressure Italy and Spain experience (particularly in Lampedusa and the Canary Islands), force majeure will probably be invoked more often than not.
“If there is not enough response in the solidarity pool in order to cover all the needs [of the frontline state in crisis], then member states will be requested by the Commission to pledge additional solidarity measures,” MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D), the rapporteur of the crisis management regulation explained.
“The priority will be mandatory relocation programs,” Aguilar stressed, adding that “the Commission will make sure that member states go beyond their so-called fair share” of allocated migrants.
Veto incoming
Because of the solidarity mechanism, the first high-level endorsement of the Migration Pact during June’s EU Council Summit was prevented by Poland and Hungary, as both countries regarded the option of financial contribution as ‘blackmail’ and vowed not to implement the package if it gets adopted through bypassing their veto.
With Poland’s conservative government out of the picture, only Budapest is expected to stand against the Pact in the Council. But as other countries are preparing to circumvent PM Orbán’s veto on the Ukraine funds in early February as a last resort, the Migration Pact could also be implemented in a similarly undemocratic manner.
Nonetheless, the Hungarian position on the Migration Pact remains clear, and Budapest will continue to oppose it, Hungarian MEP Balázs Hidvéghi told The European Conservative. As the lawmaker explained:
The EU needs a fundamentally new approach, which is based on the strong protection of external borders and a system where asylum claims are decided outside the territory of the European Union. Any other system would incentivize illegal migration towards Europe and it is, therefore, unacceptable. Hungary will not accept the relocation of illegal migrants into its territory.