On Tuesday 30 November, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties took a further step in its work on the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, presented by the European Commission on 23 September 2020 (see EUROPE 12566/1).
Following the reports on the regulation on migration and asylum management and on asylum procedures, presented on 26 October (see EUROPE 12820/6, EUROPE 12820/7), Germany’s Birgit Sippel (S&D) and Spain’s Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilár (S&D) presented their work on the introduction of a system of screening migrants arriving at the EU’s external borders and on the solidarity mechanism in cases of crisis and force majeure.
Both reports introduce or modify particularly sensitive elements; namely, for the filtering regulation, the principle of legal fiction of non-entry (on European territory), which the MEP proposes to delete. For the regulation on crisis and force majeure situations, it is the recommendation of compulsory relocation, proposed by the European Commission in these very specific cases, which could again trigger controversy, as the rapporteur also proposes to remove the possibility of helping countries in crisis with return assistance. The deadline for amendments to these two reports has been provisionally set at 14 December, but could be extended.
Regulation on the screening of migrants at external borders. The German MEP had already expressed her concern in the middle of the year that the principle of non-entry into the European territory (see EUROPE 12764/3), which is foreseen by the European Commission’s proposal and would be applied during the whole duration of the verification controls (5 days), could require massive recourse to the detention of these migrants. This principle of non-entry would also justify reduced rights for those persons arriving at the borders and not yet considered to be on EU territory. Birgit Sippel therefore proposes to abolish this fiction of non-entry, although she said on Tuesday that she “shares the objectives of the proposal” of the European Commission to better identify the people who arrive and their specific needs.
But the rapporteur recalled that under the current texts, including those on asylum procedures, an asylum seeker has the right to be considered as being on EU territory as long as he or she is awaiting a response to his or her application, and that “Member States must not detain a person solely on the grounds that he or she has lodged an asylum application”.
The EU acquis should therefore apply as soon as the person applies for asylum and not at the end of the screening process as proposed by the European Commission.
Mrs Sippel introduced amendments to this effect, as well as amendments giving applicants for international protection the possibility to effectively exercise their right to stay, through a right to enter the territory “in accordance with the derogations provided for in the Schengen Borders Code for asylum seekers”.
The rapporteur also proposes that this ‘screening’ should not only take place at or near the border, but anywhere in the country that the authorities consider appropriate. She also rejects the obligation to screen a migrant who is apprehended inside the country and who is considered to have crossed the European borders illegally.
On fundamental rights, Mrs Sippel wants to go further than the European Commission’s text and proposes that an independent mechanism should not only assess screening practices, but also the practices of those Member States at their borders.
“There are allegations, true or false”, against these Member States that justify such a check, she said.
Mrs Sippel also introduced the obligation to include non-governmental organisations and institutions in this evaluation mechanism.
Another change is that Germany does not consider it necessary to search all databases when screening, whereas the European Commission recommends consulting the Common Identity Repository (CIR), the Visa Information System (VIS), the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). The MEP therefore proposes to maintain access to the Common Identity Repository (CIR), which is necessary to identify or verify the identity of a third-country national in a single operation, while maintaining the possibility of querying other systems through the authorities, which already have access rights. She also amended a separate proposed regulation to extend the scope of the ECRIS-TCN database on criminal records of third-country nationals.
On the duration of the screening, she wants to be sure that this requirement is limited and has rejected the possibility of extending the 5-day period.
Her report was welcomed by the Greens/EFA group but considered potentially problematic by the EPP and Renew Europe, which opposes the abolition of the legal fiction of non-entry and the right of access to European territory during this procedure. The EPP is also opposed to the changes on database searches, while the ID group wants to keep screening at or near the external borders.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3o6mpxQ
Crisis and force majeure situations. The Spanish rapporteur wants a Member State facing a major upheaval in its asylum system (serious migration crisis, war, natural disaster or terrorist attack) to be able to count on the highest solidarity from its neighbours, but also for the persons arriving to be able to quickly benefit from temporary protection and the benefit of the doubt concerning their personal situation (‘prima facie’ recognition).
In his report, the MEP intends to take up as many elements as possible of the 2001 directive on temporary protection in the event of mass influxes, which was never activated and will be repealed. He also wants to propose, in proven crisis situations, that the compulsory relocation of asylum seekers, holders of international protection, and beneficiaries of ‘prima facie’ recognition be imposed on Member States on the basis of an allocation key (GDP, population size, unemployment rate). An EU relocation coordinator would be appointed for this purpose.
The examination of the application of persons in obvious need of protection should also not take longer than one month, he said, and are not to be reviewed later.
The rapporteur also wants to better define the notion of a crisis and to indicate that a crisis could also lead to evacuation programmes, the granting of humanitarian visas, the setting up of humanitarian corridors, or direct evacuation transfers. A crisis situation would arise when a Member State appears to be overwhelmed by events and its asylum system is no longer able to cope.
The solidarity mechanism envisaged to deal with this situation could also be activated in advance, when a crisis situation is imminent, and not only after its occurrence.
The European Commission would declare this state of crisis by means of a delegated act, based on information provided by the country concerned, European agencies such as EASO, and international agencies such as UNHCR. Member States would have one week to respond to requests for assistance.
There are also reportedly no return assistance policies for those who arrived in the context of these crisis events, nor are there any return sponsorship programmes.
The Committee on Civil Liberties had a mixed reception to these proposals, with the Renew Europe group having objections to compulsory relocation and the EPP group not necessarily liking the removal of assisted return schemes for such situations.
With regard to the reports presented on 26 October, the tabling of amendments has been closed in the last few days. The report on the migration and asylum management regulation alone could reach 2,000 amendments.
Link to the Crisis and force majeure report: https://bit.ly/3pfuNKY (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)