The EU’s home affairs ministers discussed, on Thursday 20 July in Logroño, Spain, the draft regulation on the management of crisis situations, of force majeure and of the instrumentalisation of migration.
This is the last text of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, presented at the end of 2020, on which the EU Council has yet to adopt its mandate. The Spanish Presidency of the EU Council hopes to obtain this quickly so that it can begin trilogues with the European Parliament before the end of the summer.
According to the Spanish Minister for Home Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, this exchange of views was “useful for better understanding the importance of this issue”, which affects fundamental rights. The “spotlight” was also placed on the external dimension of migration, added the minister, and on the need to strengthen cooperation with third countries of departure and transit, notably through partnerships such as the one recently established with Tunisia (see EUROPE 13224/3).
The agreement reached on 8 June in Luxembourg on the various texts of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ (see EUROPE 13198/8) “has given us the impetus to move in the right direction”, said the minister, aware that one must “not give in to the pressure of the timetable” (linked to the Roadmap with the European Parliament, which aims to finalise the ‘Pact’ by February 2024), but at the same time “we need to provide a satisfactory response to the major challenge” of migration. “This Pact is essential and will require effort and generosity”.
The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, welcomed a “sober and constructive” discussion on the subject of migration; in the morning, she had said that the Member States were now “very close” to an agreement on this ‘Crisis’ regulation
However, this instrument is controversial in that it provides for derogations from the general rules on asylum and returns in such cases, for example by extending the registration deadlines by up to four weeks in crisis situations and by making greater use of the border procedure, with NGOs fearing an increase in the detention of migrants, including families.
In any case, at the end of 2022, several Member States had already rejected a specific draft regulation on the instrumentalisation of migration, on the grounds that it infringed migrants’ rights.
On Thursday morning, Germany’s Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, insisted on Berlin’s red lines concerning respect for the fundamental rights of migrants and the fact that “standards must not be lowered”.
According to one source, further working group meetings will be held next week, and a political agreement seems within reach, even if certain reservations remain to be lifted.
Ukraine
At the end of the meeting, the European Commissioner also indicated that she would propose to the Member States, in principle in September, to extend the directive on temporary protection currently enjoyed by four million Ukrainians in the EU, “until March 2025”.
Ukraine was another topic of discussion for the ministers, along with organised crime, which focused in part on cooperation with Central America on the fight against drugs. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)