An important week begins between the European Parliament’s negotiators of the Schengen Borders Code reform and the Pact on Migration and Asylum, with several meetings scheduled to reach agreements in view of the vote on the European Parliament mandates between the end of March and mid-April.
On the reform of the Schengen Borders Code, a vote is scheduled at this stage in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties on 13 April and a meeting of the rapporteurs is expected to take place in principle on 21 March, although this timetable may still slide by a week.
The regulations on screening of migrants, asylum procedures, migration and asylum management (ex-Dublin) and solidarity in situations of crisis or mass influx of people will, in principle, be voted on in committee on 28 March.
On the reform of the Schengen Code, Sylvie Guillaume (S&D, French), rapporteur on the dossier, had taken some steps in recent weeks towards the EPP and Renew Europe groups to reinstate Article 23-a on procedures for returning irregular migrants between two Member States, in the framework of a joint police patrol.
An article that she did not want to see included in this reform initially, as did other groups who felt that it would worsen the situation of migrants.
She has also recently agreed to move closer to the Commission’s position on the possibility of reintroducing internal border controls in situations of unauthorised influx of third country nationals between Member States.
However, Ms Guillaume’s position remains firm on the introduction of the notion of instrumentalisation of migration in the Schengen Borders Code as well as on the possibility for Member States to cumulate control measures at internal borders for an almost unlimited period of time. These two points are red lines for the MEP.
On the Pact on Migration and Asylum, the negotiators and shadow rapporteurs of the four regulations will meet at the end of the week, in principle.
The negotiations are intense, particularly on the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR) and the optional nature of the border procedure, which does not please everyone. Another sensitive issue is the suspensive effect of a decision to refuse asylum and return during the appeal and the possibility to waive it.
On the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, the latest work has made it possible to reinstate the rescue and recovery at sea dimension in the solidarity arrangements, whereas the Swedish rapporteur, Tomas Tobé, had deleted it in his draft report. A clause is said to have been added to link rescue and relief operations at sea with relocation efforts by Member States.
The various rapporteurs of the text also wanted to facilitate, in a general way, the triggering of solidarity for countries under pressure. However, there are still crucial issues to be resolved, including the most important criterion of the Dublin Regulation: the country of first entry rule.
On the ‘Screening’ regulation, sensitive issues include the independent monitoring mechanism for fundamental rights, or the fiction of non-entry, which allows a migrant to be considered as not yet having arrived on EU soil.
In general, the difficulty for the rapporteurs is to maintain, in spite of their different political sensitivities, a coherence between all the texts of the Pact, which are all linked to each other. EUROPE will continue to follow this story. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)