The EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will meet on Thursday 7 and Friday 8 October in Luxembourg for a meeting devoted to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the strategy on the rights of the child, and on 8 October to the situation in Afghanistan and the migration situation in the EU.
Justice. On 7 October, the Ministers of Justice will first be asked to adopt the conclusions drawn up under the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council on the new EU strategy on the rights of the child (see EUROPE 12685/14).
The conclusions call on the EU27 to intensify efforts to combat all forms of violence against children and to strengthen their justice systems to make them compliant with the rights of all children.
This last point had been the subject of more in-depth discussions between the ministers last July, at the Presidency’s initiative (see EUROPE 12764/5).
They will then discuss the problems of prison overcrowding in a debate on pre-trial detention and procedural safeguards, on the basis of a Commission note in which the Commission recalls that 11 Member States have problems of prison overcrowding with prison occupancy rates exceeding 100%. Since, in many Member States, pre-trial detention is not used as a measure of last resort, the Commission’s note also points out that the divergent practices of Member States in this area pose problems for cross-border cooperation in criminal matters.
A progress report on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office will then be on the ministers’ agenda, all the while Slovenia continues to pose problems for the Chief Prosecutor, Laura Kövesi (see EUROPE 12803/3). However, a court ruling handed down in Slovenia on 5 October could change this, invalidating the Slovenian government’s decision not to appoint two Slovenian prosecutors previously nominated to join the prosecution service.
The ministers will also participate in a working lunch on the issue of “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” or SLAPPs which are often used against journalists to intimidate them.
The European Commission has detailed its plans in this area (see EUROPE 12804/20) and ministers will be asked, among other things, about the implementation of anti-SLAPP provisions at European level.
Home Affairs. On the migration front and the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, no breakthrough is expected on 8 October, even though the ministers will, in principle, have adopted, the day before, the new ‘Blue Card’ Directive on highly-skilled migrants and the plan to tighten visa requirements for Gambian nationals.
The Commission had proposed such restrictive measures in July against Bangladesh and Iraq because of insufficient cooperation on irregular migration (see EUROPE 12763/18).
Home Affairs Ministers will be asked how to move forward on external border controls of migrants, but they will do so in the context of a discussion and not the ‘pre-screening’ regulation proposed by the Pact.
Specifically, they will discuss the use of detention. On 27 September, the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council had already sounded out the Member States on the subject and they were not able to agree on a way forward (see EUROPE 12800/12).
A number of countries are pleading for a rapid adoption of this text, “but it is doubtful, because others, in the South and East, clearly want to keep the package logic and refuse decoupling”, commented a diplomat at the end of last week, also doubting that the Pact on Migration and Asylum’ could “be adopted in the near future”.
With regard to Afghanistan, the ministers will be briefed on the situation in the country. The EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator will also report. The ministers will then move on to the migration action plans developed with key third countries such as Iraq, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan.
After that, they will assess the migration situation in the EU, with irregular arrivals up 64% since the beginning of the year compared to 2020, particularly to Italy and Malta or the Canary Islands.
The ministers will continue to discuss the fight against online child pornography and, over lunch, will take stock of the interoperability of European information systems, which is behind schedule.
Forum on the protection of Afghans at risk. The day before, the Home Affairs Ministers, together with their Foreign Affairs counterparts, will have been invited to a High-Level Forum on the protection of Afghans at risk. The Forum was decided on 31 August at an informal meeting and was initially to be called the ‘Resettlement Forum’ on Afghan refugees (see EUROPE 12780/1).
For the Commission, this is not a downgrading of the objectives of the meeting. On the contrary, this new name broadens the actions envisaged and includes, for example, evacuations.
Other observers, particularly among the participating countries, do not share this view and claim that the Commission is walking on eggshells regarding resettlement. No precise reception figures were yet available on 5 October, with observers noting that many Member States still consider it premature to commit themselves to precise figures, “especially as the situation on the ground is no longer well known” due to the many departures.
This Forum, unlike the one held in July, is not, in any case, expected to be broadcast live. It will be held during the day and will include representatives from the US, Canada and the UK.
However, the Commission says it expects participating countries to commit to additional reception capacity for Afghans, while they have already agreed to offer 30,000 places in 2021 and 2022 for all refugees currently hosted by third countries.
Link to the discussion on pre-trial detention: https://bit.ly/3aaCUBc (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Agathe Cherki)