EU Member States have finalised the ‘list’ of third countries with which the European Commission will be invited to conduct an enhanced dialogue on readmissions of irregular migrants and, possibly, to activate the lever of visa conditionality provided for in the new European Code on Visas (see EUROPE 12677/1).
According to several experts close to the dossier, the Member States had chosen four third countries in Africa and Asia for action and the launch of these dialogues, whereas a first list had identified thirteen countries (see EUROPE 12688/27).
The Commission would have liked a more extensive list, according to a source said who did not wish to comment.
A discussion on the external dimension of migration and on the leverage of a potential tightening of visa requirements for targeted third country nationals could take place next week in a ministerial video conference on migration management.
This is a sensitive issue for the Member States, which had to agree on a list of third countries that corresponded to their interests and did not put too much strain on certain diplomatic ties. North African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are covered by other mechanisms and ‘dialogues’, such as the one recently launched by the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council.
The Commission will first have to assess the scope for progress with these countries in terms of voluntary or forced returns of irregular migrants to the EU and readmissions. After that, it could decide to activate conditionality, which consists of either increasing the price of issuing visas or increasing the processing time of visa applications.
The Commission is only expected to take stock of its dialogues this summer and, according to some sources, the decision to activate the lever of conditionality may not be taken until September.
In February, the Commission, in a first report on how third countries cooperate, made an assessment of 39 countries of interest to the EU, i.e. countries that readmit at least 1,000 persons per year. It was based on the financial year 2019. It will publish its second report in the autumn, for the year 2020 (see EUROPE 12655/16).
According to this 2019 assessment, the Commission had drawn up three equally sized groups, between ‘good performers’, average performers and those who clearly need to improve returns and readmissions. Since then, the Statewatch website has published this in-depth assessment of the 39 countries. Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3nN5Mp2
Progress in the EU Council on the pre-screening regulation
The external dimension of migration also accompanies the ongoing work on the Pact on Migration and Asylum, where the return dimension is omnipresent. Technical work is progressing well in the EU Council on the Regulation on prior checks on the security, identity or health of migrants arriving at external borders. These checks are to take place over five days.
The Portuguese Presidency aims to reach a political agreement in principle in the EU Council (‘general approach’) on this specific Regulation proposal before the end of June. But several unknowns remain, including the choice of whether or not to respect the political logic of the legislative package that brings together the various texts that make up the Pact.
A political agreement can only be partial in any case, as the Member States have not managed to agree on two chapters, including the one on entry permits (Article 4) and the date of entry into force of the future rules (Article 21).
Article 4 is very controversial in that it concerns authorisation to enter the territory of a Member State, and therefore the rights that may stem from it. The Regulation provides that during the screening process, the persons concerned will not be allowed to enter the territory of a Member State until it has been verified that they meet all the necessary conditions. This provision, which is very useful for some countries that also want to combine it with detention measures, is problematic for others, such as the so-called first entry countries.
Beyond this article, in general, the southern EU countries are not ready to quickly agree to a regulation creating new obligations at the external borders “without knowing what guarantees of solidarity” are foreseen in other legislative texts of the Pact, a source told us on Friday 30 April.
And on this balance between responsibility and solidarity, covered by the flagship Regulation on the management of asylum and migration, which replaces the Dublin Regulation and organises the modalities of this solidarity, between relocation and sponsorship of returns, things are moving much more slowly. The technical reading of this highly politicised and complex text, which was presented to the European Parliament by Tomas Tobé (EPP, Sweden), is therefore not yet complete.
For its part, the Commission has recently presented Member States with its numerical evaluations and simulation exercises in order to put them in a position to deal with a migration crisis, for example.
The exercise is being assessed differently at this stage, with some feeling that the simulations have ‘deflated’ myths or provided reassurance about the number of arrivals and people to be dealt with in the event of a crisis, while others are still not entirely convinced by the exercise. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)