On Tuesday 20 December, EU Member States agreed on several mandates to negotiate with the European Parliament on parts of the ‘resettlement’ regulation as well as on the qualification and reception conditions for asylum seekers directives that have not yet been agreed.
While the co-legislators last week approved - albeit still provisionally - agreements reached in 2018, on Wednesday it was a question of giving the Czech Presidency of the EU Council - and soon the Swedish Presidency - new mandates to tackle the remaining elements not yet covered by these 2018 agreements.
In this complex issue of reforming European migration and asylum rules, which is moving forward in small steps and which combines the remnants of the old 2016 Asylum Package with new elements of the 2020 Pact on Migration and Asylum, Member States have also given the EU Council Presidency a mandate to move forward on the Asylum Procedures Regulation, revising a 2016 text and presented in the 2020 Pact.
This is also a partial mandate, as a number of elements of the proposal are not covered, such as the concept of ‘safe countries’, the border procedure or the issue of time limits.
The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties for its part, has not yet approved its mandate on this regulation; the text led by Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, French) depends on the one led by Tomas Tobé (EPP, Swedish) on asylum and migration management (ex-Dublin). A vote in parliamentary committee is not envisaged before spring 2023.
Resettlement, qualifications and reception conditions. On the regulation creating a (voluntary) European framework for the resettlement of refugees, it is a question of deleting or adding links to other European texts, of re-specifying the definitions of ‘humanitarian admissions’ or ‘resettled refugee’ and of re-specifying the financial arrangements for taking charge.
Member States receive an amount of €10,000 for each person admitted by way of resettlement and an amount of €6,000 for each person admitted on humanitarian grounds. A sum of €8,000 is provided for humanitarian admission or admission under a national resettlement programme for these vulnerable groups, such as women and children at risk, unaccompanied minors, persons with medical needs that can only be met through humanitarian admission or persons in need of humanitarian admission for legal or physical protection needs, including victims of violence or torture, the mandate says.
As for the other texts, the Presidency suggests that “the future procedural steps of Coreper preparing the adoption of the framework regulation on resettlement should be taken in the context of an overall assessment of the state of play of the negotiations on all the files relating to asylum and migration reform”, in particular on Eurodac and ‘Screening’, the text says.
On the ‘qualifications’ directive, which aims to set the minimum conditions required to be able to benefit from protection in the EU, the EU Council also had to confirm other elements of the text, not covered by the 2018 work. The mandate adds, for example, a reference to secondary movements for these resettled persons or those admitted on humanitarian grounds: “The provisions of this Regulation relating to the content of international protection, including rules to discourage secondary movements, should apply to persons who have been granted international protection following the positive conclusion of a resettlement or humanitarian admission procedure in accordance with the Framework Regulation on Resettlement”.
On the reception conditions for asylum seekers, the references to the UK, which were still valid in 2018 when the country had not yet left the EU definitively, are deleted; the Member States also specify that the evaluation of this directive must be carried out 2 years after its entry into force, not 3.
On asylum procedures, the mandate adopted aims to clarify definitions such as ‘unaccompanied minor’, the taking of biometric data (digital and facial) or to specify the role of the authorities involved such as border guards. Cooperation between Member States or the information given to the migrants concerned are also covered, as well as the format of individual interviews for these persons, who should in principle be accompanied by a legal adviser.
Links to the 4 mandates: https://aeur.eu/f/4qj ; https://aeur.eu/f/4qk ; https://aeur.eu/f/4ql ; https://aeur.eu/f/4qm (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)