EU interior ministers said, on Friday 14 October in Luxembourg, that they were ready to receive possible new waves of refugees “this winter”, the Czech Minister of the Interior, Vít Rakušan, said after the meeting.
They also agreed in principle to extend the temporary protection currently granted to 4.3 million Ukrainians until March 2024.
“Our main message is that the EU is ready to continue to welcome them, it is our duty”, the minister added.
The discussion on Ukraine also focused on the risks that the war poses to the EU’s internal security, between arms trafficking, human exploitation and other criminal networks.
Pact on Migration and Asylum
The interior ministers also supported, on 14 October, the progress made by the Czech Presidency of the EU Council in moving forward on the Pact on Migration and Asylum, specifically on the solidarity mechanism part of the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (see EUROPE 13036/19).
“We have the support of the ministers for the next step”, commented Vít Rakušan, acknowledging that the discussions are not easy and the views of the Member States remain very different, but that a compromise can be found with will.
As a reminder, the work of the Czech Presidency focuses on the combination of ‘flexible solidarity’ and ‘flexible responsibility’. It is also a question of continuing exchanges with the European Parliament in order to make progress on a series of legislative texts that have already been the subject of interinstitutional agreements and to begin trilogues.
Commissioner Ylva Johansson said she was pleased that the work was progressing and that the discussions could be translated into legislation.
Link to the note on security in the EU: https://aeur.eu/f/3mj (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)