The negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council reached an agreement this Wednesday on the Migration and Asylum Pact, which will result in greater control of the external borders of the European Union and will offer governments to avoid receiving migrants. relocated with alternatives such as payment of compensation for rejected transfer.
“Success! After years of political stagnation, we have reached an agreement,” announced one of the MEPs on the negotiating team, the Dutch Christian Democrat Jeroen Lenaers, early this Wednesday, after an early morning of negotiations on the nine files that make up the Pact and that cover the entire process, including the reinforcement of border control and identification of migrants until each file is resolved with the granting of asylum or the expulsion decision.
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, has assured in a statement on social networks that “December 20, 2023 will go down in history” because a fundamental agreement has been reached for migration and asylum management in the European Union. “I am very proud that with the Pact on Migration and Asylum we have managed to offer solutions,” she noted.
“All the pieces have fallen into place. It is a turning point in the five key pillars of the Migration and Asylum Pact. It has been a long road but we achieved it,” celebrated the vice president of the European Commission in charge of migration, Margaritis. Schinas, on a political agreement that will still require technical work in the coming weeks to be finalized.
The new rules, which still need the approval of the plenary session of the European Parliament and the Twenty-seven to be formally adopted, put an end to years of hard negotiations between the Member States themselves to agree on a balance between “solidarity” with the countries in the first place line, like Spain and Italy, and the “responsibility” that they demand from these other partners with fear of secondary movements.
Finally, the solution is a mechanism of “flexible solidarity” that will force the Twenty-seven to respond to a partner overwhelmed with the arrival of migrants, either by relocating part of the arrived people to their territory, or by paying assessed compensation for each migrant who arrives. I rejected.
The objective is to transfer at least 30,000 migrants each year, but countries may refuse to receive part of those welcomed in exchange for compensation of 20,000 euros for each rejected transfer or means or funds of equivalent value.
The ‘à la carte’ solidarity model will also be applied to the crisis or force majeure mechanism for which the European Parliament – and countries such as Spain and Italy at first – unsuccessfully defended that it should have a mandatory system of reception quotas that would be activated only in extreme situations.
Among the main obstacles that have delayed the agreement were the safeguards for the most vulnerable groups, including unaccompanied minors and families, in the accelerated border procedures that will include rapid deportations for those who do not receive asylum status and come from countries considered safe.
They also had to resolve the differences in the last round on the regulation for prior entry control with which to more quickly identify those who will not receive protection and the fear of MEPs that by allowing this ‘screening’ within the territory of the EU could give rise to discrimination against controlled persons.
2023-12-20 08:33:30
#agrees #Migration #Asylum #Pact #greater #border #control #carte #solidarity
