The so-called refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016 opened a thunderstorm in the European Union. It caused distrust among the partners and opened wounds that remain unhealed today. After several attempts to find a solution that ended up failing, Ursula von der Leyen's Executive wanted to wipe the slate clean and put on the table a common policy that, first, promises to learn from the mistakes of the past; and, second, adequately manage migratory flows. Thus, in September 2020, she proposed the pact on Migration and Asylum that the countries will have to begin negotiating with the European Parliament, after this week the capitals closed the last point that remained to be established: their position. The goal is to close it in the next three months. What are the key points of the pact?
The regulation on asylum and migration management is the centerpiece of the pact. The objective is to have a common comprehensive European policy, which is currently lacking, since for the moment only ad hoc solutions have been applied in which each country decides whether or not it wants to help. With it, it is expected to replace the so-called Dublin regulation, which requires a person to request asylum in the first country they arrive at. The crisis of 2015 and 2016 proved to be very ineffective, when the countries that were on the front line lamented that they were alone in the face of the arrival of migratory flows.
The new norm is committed to a principle of shared solidarity, in which all countries must contribute in some way to the management of the arrival of immigrants. The interior ministers reached an agreement on this regulation in June, with Poland and Hungary voting against, by which the countries will be able to host at least 30,000 people a year in total, but will not be obliged to do so. Those countries that prefer not to relocate anyone must contribute 20,000 euros per year per asylum seeker or by sending material and/or equipment.
Faced with a migration crisis, the European Commission proposed an instrument that can be activated in the event of pressure on a Member State. This instrument, approved precisely this week, repeals some of the obligations that countries have when it comes to managing asylum applications, as well as returns in the event of a large number of arrivals. Specifically, states will be able to prolong the detention of people who do not have the right to asylum in special centers for an additional eight weeks (currently it was 18 weeks). Likewise, in crisis situations, the registration of people may be extended up to four weeks. In the event of a massive arrival of asylum seekers, a country may ask its other partners to support it with measures such as hosting refugees, contributing with returns, or sending specialists to the border to help with identification. The European Parliament, which voted on its position in April, demands that solidarity between countries in the event of migratory pressure be a norm, not an exception. For this reason, it is committed to mandatory reception fees in the event of a crisis.
The regulation on “instrumentalization of migration” was proposed at the end of 2021, after Alexander Lukashenko's regime began attracting migrants mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen to Belarus and then forcing them to cross European borders into Latvia. , Lithuania and Poland. Travel agencies in the country guaranteed visas to these people and promised them that they could easily enter the EU. Many migrants were thus left in no man's land. European countries prevented them from entering, but they could not return to Belarus either.
The Commission proposed that this regulation be negotiated together with the crisis management regulation, since it is considered an extraordinary situation. In the text agreed upon by the countries this week, this was the most controversial point for Italy, since the text specifies that the activities of NGOs “cannot be considered instrumentalization” when “there is no objective of destabilizing the EU or a Member State.” Rome, with its particular battle against non-governmental organizations, and despite everything, ended up accepting it this week, since the somewhat vague wording of the agreement allowed the Government of Giorgia Meloni to sell the pact among its public opinion.
The new directive on asylum procedures proposes that the procedure for managing applications be accelerated. Only those petitioners who have not previously passed through other member states will be accepted. A procedure will also be applied by which applications from those who have false documents or from people who come from countries with an asylum recognition rate of less than 20% will not be accepted. The procedures may not last more than four weeks. Additionally, immigrants must remain in closed facilities. The management of requests also includes the issue of examinations carried out at the external borders. After matching fingerprints and data, you must proceed to the asylum application procedure; or, failing that, a quick return to the country of origin. Returns are one of the issues that the pact also focuses on. According to Eurostat, the EU orders approximately 400,000 people each year to return to their countries of origin, but only 30% of those orders materialize. A percentage that both the Commission and the countries want to reverse.
The European Commission has made it clear that it is one of the fundamental pieces for managing migration. Bet on more agreements, such as the one recently signed with Tunisia last summer, controversial and controversial, which has raised unease among some capitals. Despite everything, these pacts - which they want to replicate with Egypt, Morocco or Nigeria - are the ones that generate the most consensus both between the countries that are the main gateway (those in the south) and those of final destination (those in the north). ). These are pacts in which, in exchange for money, we want to keep migration controlled, but also facilitate investment and promote projects in those countries to contain these flows. For now, the pact with Tunisia has not translated into a lower number of arrivals, and the country's president, Kaid Saied, blurted out this week that European aid is “laughable.”
