What will the future Pact on Migration and Asylum, the publication of which by the European Commission is slow in coming to fruition, look like? Will it be inspired by the current health crisis and the potential increase in asylum applications with the pandemic, as anticipated by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) on 12 May?
One of the questions raised concerns the project, put forward by the Commission before the Covid-19 pandemic, to establish a ‘toolbox’ of solidarity measures vis-à-vis the countries most affected by the influx of migrants, including the relocation of asylum seekers and irregular migrants to be sent back to their countries.
While the Commission refuses to give its timetable, the competent Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, recently announced that the future Pact, which is supposed to relaunch work on the abortive reform of the European asylum system, has been almost finalised. She also indicated that the Covid-19 crisis would obviously be taken into account in the upcoming project, while the EASO predicts that the pandemic and the resulting poverty will push more candidates for a better future towards Europe.
See the EASO special report: https://bit.ly/2YVUGUz
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Commission had already made good progress on its draft Pact, according to a draft communication circulated in February and consulted by EUROPE. This project is the result of a tour of almost all the capitals of the Member States carried out by Ms Johansson and Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas.
The European institution provided for a clear architecture around three main pillars: – robust international agreements with non-Member States to prevent the causes of migration; – better protected external borders of the EU; – a Europe where internal cohesion on migration is stronger.
This Pact, in its pre-Covid-19 version, respected several key principles, such as a human-centred approach (advocating respect for non-refoulement), a global approach to the migration phenomenon and a “truly shared” responsibility among Member States.
In 2019, five Member States – Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Spain and Italy – accounted for 91% of total irregular border crossings in the EU and five others – France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Greece – accounted for the highest number of asylum applications in the EU.
Allocating asylum seekers, but not only that
The Commission also wanted to propose a joint responsibility of the Member States for those rescued at sea, with priority relocation and the establishment of faster asylum procedures for those rescued, as well as faster return procedures in the event that their application for international protection is rejected.
Since 2016, the shared responsibility aspect has been the real stumbling block of the asylum package, which initially provided for an allocation of asylum seekers and solidarity actions when migratory pressure at the EU’s doorstep increases.
In February, the Pact was to propose to abolish the revision of the Dublin Regulation as tabled in 2016, which still faltered over the introduction of a mechanism for the compulsory relocation of migrants by replacing the proposal on the table with a regulation on the ‘management of migration’.
The new proposal aimed to relieve the so-called initial entry countries with a fair distribution of asylum seekers between Member States, but also a distribution of irregular migrants to be sent back to their countries and of refugees or persons benefiting from resettlement programmes.
Moreover, unlike in 2016, the Commission did not propose any obligation to receive migrants. On the contrary, a “solidarity toolbox” was set up and contained measures allowing countries refusing to receive migrants to show solidarity in other ways, such as sending border guards. Member States would thus remain free to say “what kind of solidarity” they want to exercise “at any time”.
The European institution was also of the opinion that a “mathematical formula” that would be applied to relocate migrants was not the best response to the migration phenomenon. The “complexity of migratory movements requires a more realistic approach to activate solidarity contributions on the basis of a qualitative analysis” of a country’s migratory situation, “rather than an automatic mathematical formula”, the text said.
In 2016, the ‘Juncker’ Commission created controversy by proposing quotas for asylum seekers based on criteria such as the GDP of Member States.
Amending liability rules under Dublin
Without, however, sacrificing the principle of the so-called ‘first country of entry’, which it did not mention, the Commission was also considering, in February, more generally remedying a structural shortcoming in the so-called Dublin Regulation: how can secondary movements and the abuse of the current rule whereby responsibility for an asylum seeker may shift to another country after a certain period of time be avoided?
The Commission therefore suggested amending the European rules to ensure that this changeover of liability is not a factor fuelling secondary movements, in particular by increasing the time period before such a changeover takes place. It has also been proposed to eliminate the notion of “stable responsibility” in order to make a system more flexible that is sometimes considered too rigid.
As such, the Commission was possibly considering amending the 2016 texts on asylum procedures.
In return for the expected greater solidarity, the external borders were also to be strengthened (the second axis). For example, the Commission envisaged speeding up and strengthening the identification of migrants by identifying more quickly those who are genuinely in need of protection. The use of so-called border procedures, which allows for accelerated processing for persons whose profile suggests that they will not be granted asylum, was thus envisaged.
Finally, the February draft Pact also did not forget support for the integration of migrants and the fight against traffickers. It also recalled that an efficient migration system can only serve the cause of a Schengen area of free movement of persons without controls at its internal borders.
This is a “priority” for the Commission, which is still planning to amend the Schengen Borders Code (see EUROPE 12482/16). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)