The Slovenian EU Council Presidency’s proposal for a swift adoption of the regulation on the new database for asylum seekers, Eurodac, by removing the controversial elements and deleting references to other Pact texts (see EUROPE 12794/3), has received a mixed reception from Member States.
The southern countries of the EU, united under the acronym MED5, namely Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Malta, have therefore published a new common position calling for this tool not to be dissociated from the rest of the Pact.
Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary followed the same line, as outlined in a document dated 11 October. France and Germany, on the other hand, have taken a position in favour of a rapid adoption of this new basis, which, in their view, retains an operational dimension and can contribute to strengthening security at the external borders.
The proposal on the table excludes, at this stage, the more controversial categories of rescue at sea or relocation of asylum seekers, which the Commission had proposed to integrate into Eurodac in September 2020, and the southern countries are opposed to their removal from the text.
The MED5 countries thus reiterate, as they have already done with regard to the so-called ‘migrant screening’ regulation, their position that all the proposed legislative dossiers “must move forward in a coherent and consolidated manner, thus contributing to a sustainable, crisis-resistant and fair migration management system. Therefore, we cannot support the decoupling of Eurodac from the other legislative dossiers of the Pact, as it is functional to asylum, resettlement and irregular migration policies”.
The new Pact “should anticipate the challenges faced by states at the external border, while taking into account their specificities and ensuring a balance between responsibility and solidarity”. In this context, these southern EU countries believe that “the amended proposal on Eurodac should already properly include the category of rescue at sea, return sponsorship and relocation” and “give clear indications on the transfer of responsibility for all these categories”, which is precisely what other countries reject.
For their part, France and Germany are calling for the rapid adoption of this tool, which has great “operational” value, according to Paris.
For Berlin, the changes proposed by the Commission in 2020 “are urgently needed”, both to count asylum applications and the number of people arriving in the EU, although Berlin acknowledges that changes to the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) will then need to be reflected in Eurodac to ensure full consistency. “When progress on the AMMR is made in the future, consequent changes in Eurodac will have to be discussed”.
Other issues are raised by Member States, such as the retention period of the data recorded in the database, which should be 10 years says Croatia.
Link to the answers: https://bit.ly/3mFSkTY (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)