German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants the German EU Council Presidency to be an opportunity to make progress on reforming the European asylum system and strengthening external border controls, in particular by checking the profiles of all people arriving in the EU and redirecting them quickly to the right procedure (return or asylum), he told the German media on Sunday 7 June.
He also explained that people who are not eligible for asylum should not be relocated between Member States, but “must instead be turned away”.
The Commission has to make the final trade-offs for its Pact on Migration and Asylum, which could be unveiled on 24 June, according to some sources. If it had at one time tested the idea of also distributing people to be returned, the idea would now be to reserve ‘relocation’ only for those who can be granted asylum. Front-line states would therefore be massively assisted in making these returns faster.
The ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ will in any case still have to determine the degree of obligation in terms of solidarity and relocation.
The Commission would still consider a ‘solidarity toolbox’, mandatory in times of crisis, including relocation and other forms of assistance where appropriate, but these sources question the effectiveness of a reception response that is not a mandatory and quantified minimum.
At this stage, the Commission would in any case envisage a regulation on migration management (replacing the Dublin Regulation), a specific regulation for crisis situations of the Covid-19 type, again with relocation, a regulation on procedures at external borders to speed up identification and returns, an amendment to the regulation on asylum procedures, a revision of the Eurodac Regulation, an approach on rescue at sea as well as a revision of the Blue Card Directive on legal migration.
It also wants to develop a specific governance plan to improve coordination. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)