Member States’ Justice and Home Affairs advisors will discuss a new compromise document on the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) on Wednesday 10 May.
While Member States’ representatives had a first exchange on 3 May under the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU on the state of play of the work on the AMMR as well as the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR) (see EUROPE 13174/5), this new text continues to specify the modalities of the annual migration cycle, which allows anticipating the needs of Member States facing foreseeable pressures. It reiterates in the scope of the regulation (Article 35) that the solidarity mechanism is compulsory, but later weakens the Commission’s competence to redefine upwards the solidarity needs between relocation and other aid, as it ‘may’ set higher annual figures for relocation or direct financial contributions. In contrast, the old versions stated that the Commission would set these figures higher, if it considered that the commitments offered by the Member States were still insufficient.
The compromise also deletes, as regards the criteria for determining the responsibility of a Member State for an asylum application, the new criteria relating to obtaining a visa in a Member State in order to request an examination of one’s case by that same Member State. The sibling criterion is also deleted as siblings should not be included in the definition of family members in the Regulation.
Beneficiary states urged to make ‘good use’ of the Solidarity Pool
The compromise further modifies the mechanisms for triggering the Solidarity Pool by member countries designated by a Commission decision as countries under pressure.
“Member States identified in the decision as being under pressure should be able to do it in a simple manner, by merely informing the Commission and the Council of its intention to use the Solidarity Pool, following which the Commission should convene the technical level Migration Forum”.
Member States that consider themselves to be under migratory pressure will, in order to be able to use the Pool, have to provide a duly substantiated justification of the existence and extent of the migratory pressure as well as other relevant information in the form of a notification which the Commission should assess rapidly, the Presidency had already proposed in previous texts, but this time it calls for ‘restraint’ as regards the use of this Solidarity Pool.
“Benefitting Member States should endeavour to use the Pool in a reasonable and proportionate manner, taking into account solidarity needs of the other Member States under migratory pressure [...]”, adds the Swedish Presidency in this last text.
Link to the document: https://aeur.eu/f/6rh (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)