Member states and the European Parliament struck on Wednesday a major deal to reform the bloc's migration policy, capping off a three-year-long ambitious effort that at times seemed doomed to fail.
ADVERTISEMENTThe sought-after agreement, which is preliminary and still needs to undergo formal ratification, was sealed after marathon talks that began on Monday afternoon, continued throughout Tuesday and concluded on Wednesday morning, an intensity that reflects the high stakes on the table.
Negotiations focused on a vast and complex array of open questions that required compromises on both sides, such as detention periods, racial profiling, unaccompanied minors, search-and-rescue operations and border surveillance.
The Council, led by the Spanish presidency, defended a rigid position to give member states the widest margin of manoeuvre to handle migration, including by extending a proposed fast-tracked asylum procedure to as many claimants as possible, while the Parliament insisted on stricter provisions to respect fundamental rights. The European Commission also took part, providing assistance and guidance.
With the winter break looming ever closer, the co-legislators were under increasing pressure to patch up their differences, which in some cases were profound, and achieve the eagerly anticipated breakthrough. Thanks to Wednesday's leap, the bloc will be able to push forward five interlinked pieces of legislation that redefine the rules to collectively receive, manage and relocate the irregular arrival of migrants.
The laws, known as the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, were first unveiled in September 2020 in an attempt to turn the page on decades of ad-hoc crisis management, which saw governments take unilateral and uncoordinated measures to cope with a steep rise in asylum seekers.
These go-it-alone policies severely undermined the EU's collective decision-making and left Brussels looking like an inconsequential bystander in what is arguably the most politically explosive issue on the agenda.
At its core, the New Pact is meant to establish predictable, clear-cut norms that bind all member states, regardless of their geographic location and economic weight. The ultimate goal is to find a balance between the responsibility of frontline nations, like Italy, Greece and Spain, which receive the bulk of asylum seekers, and the principle of solidarity that other countries should uphold.
"Migration is a European challenge that requires European solutions," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who had made the reform a top priority for her five-year term. The New Pact "means that Europeans will decide who comes to the EU and who can stay, not the smugglers. It means protecting those in need."
Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament, hailed the moment as a "truly historic day" and spoke of "probably the most important legislative deal of this mandate" that had been "10 years in the making."
"It was not easy," Metsola said on Wednesday morning. "We have defied the odds and proven that Europe can deliver on the issue that matters to citizens."
Metsola admitted the New Pact was not a "perfect package" and some "complex issues" remained unaddressed. "But what we do have on the table" is far better for all of us than what we have had previously," she added.
Wednesday's preliminary deal will now be translated into amended legal texts, which will have to be first approved by the Parliament and, later, by the Council.
Both roads could prove perilous. In the hemicycle, the Greens and the Left have already expressed disapproval about the agreement, suggesting they will not endorse it. And in the Council, last-minute demands from governments cannot be ruled out, given the extreme sensitivity of the issue. Nevertheless, the approval in the Council will be done by a qualified majority vote, meaning individual countries will not be able to veto.
The cycle must conclude before Brussels comes to a total standstill ahead of the next elections to the European Parliament, scheduled for early June.
Five laws, one pact
The New Pact on Migration and Asylum is a legislative project with an all-encompassing approach that intends to piece together all the aspects of migration management, from the very moment migrants reach the bloc's territory until the resolution of their requests for international protection.
Crucially, it does not alter the so-called "Dublin principle," which says the responsibility for an asylum application lies first and foremost with the first country of arrival.
Overall, it is meant to cover the "internal dimension" of migration while the "external dimension" is addressed through tailor-made deals with neighbouring countries, like Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt.
The five laws contained in the New Pact are:
ADVERTISEMENTThe Screening Regulation, which envisions a pre-entry procedure to swiftly examine an asylum seeker's profile and collect basic information such as nationality, age, fingerprints and facial image. Health and security checks will also be carried out.
The amended Eurodac Regulation, which updates the Eurodac, the large-scale database that will store the biometric evidence collected during the screening process. The database will shift from counting applications to counting applicants to prevent multiple claims under the same name.
The amended Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR), which sets two possible steps for migrants: the traditional asylum procedure, which usually takes several months to complete, and a fast-tracked border procedure, meant to last a maximum of 12 weeks. The border procedure will apply to migrants who pose a risk to national security and those who come from countries with low recognition rates, such as Morocco, Pakistan and India. These migrants will not be allowed to enter the national territory and instead be kept at facilities on the border, creating a "legal fiction of non-entry."
The Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR), which establishes a system of "mandatory solidarity" that will offer countries three options to manage migration flows: relocate a certain number of asylum seekers, pay a contribution for each claimant they refuse to relocate, and finance operational support. Brussels insists the system will not force any member state to accept refugees as long as they contribute through any of the other two options.
The Crisis Regulation, which foresees exceptional rules that will apply when the bloc's asylum system is threatened by a sudden and massive arrival of refugees, as was the case during the 2015-2016 migration crisis, or by a situation of force majeure, like the COVID-19 pandemic. In these circumstances, national authorities will be allowed to apply tougher measures, including longer detention periods.
The negotiations between the Council and the Parliament had been playing out for months, first in separate talks on each legislative file and, most recently, in the so-called "jumbo" format, where the five draft laws were considered all at once under the mantra "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
The discussions became an intense, time-consuming back-and-forth, with each side trying to hold their ground against the other's demands. Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a third-term Spanish MEP who acts as rapporteur for the Crisis Regulation, described the process as a "real tug of war" with round-the-clock negotiations.
"We have not slept a wink in the last couple of days," López Aguilar said.
Member states were bent on preserving the hard-fought compromise they had struck among themselves after years of fruitless and bitter debates to reform the bloc's migration policy. The compromise was particularly delicate on the system of "mandatory solidarity" envisioned under the AMMR: countries had agreed on an annual quota of 30,000 relocations and a €20,000 contribution for each asylum seeker they reject.
But lawmakers resented the Council's unyielding position and urged flexibility to meet halfway. Some of the last remaining differences were the scope of the 12-week border procedure, the detention of irregular applicants, a mechanism to monitor fundamental rights and the concept of third safe countries.
ADVERTISEMENTPoland and the Baltic states pushed for special rules to cope with the instrumentalisation of migrants, a phenomenon which themselves suffered first-hand in 2021 when Belarus orchestrated an influx of asylum seekers in retaliation for international sanctions.
Meanwhile, as talks gathered pace, humanitarian organisations stepped up their public campaign to warn the New Pact risks normalising large-scale detention and sending migrants back to countries where they face violence and persecution. The concerns were echoed on Wednesday morning, as details of the agreement emerged.
"The Pact does not solve the EU's asylum issues; it actually limits access to asylum and rights for those seeking protection," Caritas Europe said in a statement, warning that "widespread detention and poor reception standards" and "rushed asylum procedures with restricted safeguards and appeals" are likely to happen.
In an equally scathing reaction, Amnesty International predicted a "surge in suffering on every step" of an asylum seeker's journey and denounced the 12-week border procedure as "substandard." The pact's Crisis Regulation has the potential of "breaching international law" and setting a "dangerous precedent for the right to asylum globally," the organisation said.
Reacting to the criticism, Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, who participated in the marathon talks, said the deal included a "cap" on the number of asylum seekers who can go through the fast-tracked procedure to avoid "any overcrowding." If the limit is reached, migrants will be redirected to the traditional asylum procedure, which allows free movement across national territory. Legal counselling will be provided free of charge for the "whole process," Johansson said.
ADVERTISEMENT"Migration is something normal. Migration has always been there and will be there. Our task (is) to manage migration in an orderly way – together," the Commissioner said.
Implementing the New Pact, which will take months after the final texts are approved, will be inevitably hamstrung by the question of deportations. For years, the EU has struggled to convince countries of origin to take back the asylum seekers whose claims are unsuccessful, leaving many trapped in a legal limbo. Brussels is now trying a mix of tools to correct the situation, such as appointing a Return Coordinator to coordinate national policies and threatening visa restrictions on nations who refuse to cooperate.
"Of course, more needs to be done, but we are actually making progress in this area," Johansson said.
Wednesday's deal comes mere days after Frontex, the bloc's border and coast guard agency, said irregular border crossings had surpassed 355,000 incidents in the first 11 months of the year, the highest number for that period since 2016.
The continued rise in border-crossing incidents injected momentum into the negotiations and pulled the New Pact out of the political limbo it had been stuck in since 2020.
ADVERTISEMENTThis article has been updated with more reactions and information.