Work is being organised in the European Parliament to distribute the reports on the new texts of the Asylum and Migration Pact presented on 23 September by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12566/1). A number of political decisions have been taken in recent days, including the decision to reallocate the new Regulation replacing the pending revision of the Dublin Regulation to the EPP Group rather than to Renew Europe, as the latter group had hoped.
The new Regulation on asylum and migration management, which proposes, among other things, new criteria for determining the State responsible for an asylum application (the ‘Dublin’ system) and a mechanism for compulsory solidarity in times of migratory pressure and crisis, comes under the leadership of the EPP, after a decision based, among other things, on the system of weighted votes (Hondt’s rule). Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, France) will remain shadow rapporteur on this Regulation, but will therefore not succeed her Swedish colleague Cécilia Wikström, who led the work on the reform of the Dublin Regulation during the previous legislature.
The Renew Europe group thought it would keep the dossier, but the other groups considered it to be a completely new draft: the 2016 proposal reforming the Dublin 3 Regulation and covered by Wikström had been adopted in 2017 by Parliament, which called for automatic relocation of asylum seekers even under normal circumstances. But the Commission has chosen to withdraw it in its new package of proposals.
The EPP has confirmed that it has obtained this much coveted report, but has not yet taken a decision on who will be the rapporteur, another source told EUROPE. The list of contenders would be long and would include the Dutchman Jeroen Lenaers, the Maltese Roberta Metsola and the Swede Tomas Tobé.
The Renew Europe group, for its part, together with Mrs Keller, is taking over the new Regulation on asylum procedures, which sets a 12-week deadline for so-called border procedures (vulnerable persons are not affected by this procedure) and the S&D group will be responsible for the new Regulation on preliminary security checks at the border, the rapporteur not yet decided.
The latter text provides for checks (security, health, identity) over a period of 5 days before determining to which procedure (at the border or normal asylum procedure) a person should be redirected.
Finally, the ECR group will continue to work on the amended Regulation on the Eurodac database, which is intended to become a major database on migration and asylum. The rapporteur will be Spain’s Jorge Buxadé Villalba, the group told EUROPE. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)