The Czech Presidency of the EU Council will again sound out Member States on Tuesday 4 October on how to take forward the solidarity mechanism of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ and amend the regulation on asylum and migration management.
It will also ask them to work on a concept of ‘flexible responsibility’ to be introduced in the regulation on the management of migratory situations of crisis and force majeure and will also invite them to give their views on how to work with the European Parliament.
A note from the Czech Presidency, dated 29 September, clarifies the functioning of the annual solidarity ‘pool’ fed by a Commission recommendation and tests options, resuming work on a formula for calculating Member States’ solidarity obligations, with Member States still being able to choose between relocations and/or financial support, the concept of return partnerships having disappeared.
The note also takes up the proposal of the so-called ‘Med5’ countries (Italy, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, Spain) to set a certain percentage of annual relocations.
Prague will thus ask Member States about the “fair share as an obligatory distribution key”, whereby Member States are obliged, when committing themselves to contribute to the solidarity reserve, to respect a distribution key based on the agreed formula.
With regard to the minimum threshold for relocations “on the basis of expected arrivals”, as requested by the ‘Med5’, a fixed percentage of all irregular arrivals expected by Member States at the external borders would be used to calculate the overall relocation needs for the following year.
And on the basis of this formula, “Member States would be able to (or be obliged to) set the level of their relocation contributions in order to meet those needs”. A “cap for relocations” could also be considered in this scenario to ensure predictability for contributing Member States.
The Commission could recommend as well an annual nominal value for the global solidarity mechanism, with minimum thresholds for relocations and for financial contributions for each year.
The group of Member States opting for relocation would commit to the minimum threshold recommended by the Commission. And if very few contribute through relocation, then the other Member States would have to meet the required financial threshold (to ensure an equivalent level of solidarity commitment).
Finally, Prague will also test the idea of additional solidarity for situations where relocation commitments are insufficient. “Such a mechanism would allow the remaining unfulfilled relocation pledges to be topped up, with a possibility for Member States under particular pressure/experiencing a crisis to apply for a corresponding reduction in the take back/take charge requests and/or transfers under the Dublin rules they would otherwise be responsible for and thus shifting the responsibility to Member States providing solidarity”, the note explains.
For flexible responsibility, Prague proposes that the derogations provided for in the ‘crisis or force majeure’ regulation (relaxations of the right to asylum with extended deadlines for processing applications) should be applicable to all crisis situations related to migration and should be brought closer to the regulation on instrumentalisation.
In times of instrumentalisation, Member States will indeed be able to derogate from the classic rules on asylum and material care for migrants.
Prague will also ask Member States to consider extending this flexible responsibility to other Pact texts such as the one on asylum procedures or the Eurodac Regulation.
Additional flexibility could even be envisaged for the liability rules related to the Dublin system organising the obligations of each Member State.
The Presidency is asking Member States to agree on a gesture towards the European Parliament to accept texts pending since 2018 in a mini-package, in exchange for the launch of the trilogues for the ‘Eurodac’ and ‘Screening’ regulations. EUROPE will continue to follow this story.
Link to the note: https://aeur.eu/f/3di (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)