The European Union (EU) managed to close an agreement on the migration and asylum pact this Wednesday, with which it intends manage the flows of immigrants to their territory in a predictable and orderly manner.
“The Council and Parliament make great progress on reform to improve the EU migration and asylum system. A political agreement has been reached on the five files of the new EU pact on migration and asylum,” the presidency announced Spanish of the Council of the EU in its official account on X.
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It has taken two days and nights of intense negotiations to finish closing the last obstacles of the complex legislative package that the European Commission proposed in 2020.
“It is a historic moment,” Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson highlighted in a video published on her X account, while community vice president Margaritis Schinas noted on the same social network that the EU has finally managed to put all the pieces together after “a long road” and that “Europe is finally delivering on migration.”
“The Migration and Asylum Pact is in itself a success to the extent that it is a step forward with respect to the unsatisfactory and unsustainable situation from which we come. From its entry into force, we will finally have a European response to the migratory fact and its challenges, especially in crisis situations,” Juan Fernando López Aguilar, president of the European Parliamentary Commission on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), told EFE.
In this way, “the principle enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), article 80 – solidarity and fair distribution of responsibility between Member States – is transferred to directly binding European legislation,” added López Aguilar, rapporteur of the proposal for a Regulation regarding situations of crisis and force majeure, one of the five axes of the pact on migration and asylum.
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“After years of political stalemate we have today agreed on a common European response to the challenge of migration. The new rules will allow us to regain control of our external borders and reduce migratory pressure towards the EU,” said Swedish MEP Tomas Tobé ( PPE), rapporteur of the regulation on the management of asylum and migration, one of the most important pieces of the migration pact.
The agreement reached early this Wednesday between the representatives of the presidency of the EU Council (held by Spain until the end of the year), the European Parliament and the European Commission, must still be formalized and adopted in the first half of 2024 , before the European elections that will be held in the 27 countries of the community club between June 6 and 9.
He complex migration package aims to provide the Twenty-seven with a predictable mechanism to respond to existing needsincluding the protection of borders, the reception of refugees and the return of those who do not have the right to remain in the Union.
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The idea of reforming European migration policy began to take shape in 2016, when nearly two million irregular migrants and asylum seekers arrived in the EU fleeing the war in Syria.
The reform proposed by the Community Executive chaired by Luxembourger Jean-Claude Juncker did not obtain the necessary support from the Member States due to disagreements over how to apply the principle of solidarity and share responsibilities in the field of asylum in a fair manner.
In September 2020, The European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen tried to reactivate the reform by presenting a new pact on migration and asylumwhich offered a comprehensive approach to strengthen and integrate policies on migration, asylum and border management.
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Mandatory refugee quotas were scrapped after the failure of the previous Commission and opted for “à la carte” solidarity, which will allow the twenty-seven States to voluntarily host refugees or otherwise participate in the efforts, for example by financing construction of reception centers.
He The immigration pact includes five regulations and four other pieces of legislation from 2016 proposals.
A press conference is scheduled in the European Parliament at 9:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.), with the president Roberta Metsola and the socialist MEPs López Aguilar, the conservative Tobé and the liberal Fabienne Keller.
The community vice president, Margaritis Schinas, and the Interior Commissioner, Ylva Johannsson, will also appear before the press half an hour later to explain the details of the pact.
EFE
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