The Member States of the European Union failed, on Wednesday 26 July, to reach agreement on the regulation on the management of crisis situations, force majeure and the instrumentalisation of migration.
This was the first political ‘test’ for the text of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, which the EU Council had begun work on in mid-June (see EUROPE 13203/17).
The Spanish Presidency of the EU Council, which had hoped to be able to launch negotiations with the European Parliament before the end of the summer, will therefore relaunch discussions in September, according to two sources.
Questioned about their ability to support the latest draft compromise, several countries, such as Austria, Poland and Hungary, indicated on Wednesday their intention to oppose it; Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia also expressed their intention to abstain, while the Czech Republic also said it was opposed to the latest draft text, one of these sources reported.
The Spanish Presidency therefore considered that it did not have sufficient support, notably political support, for this text; several countries still needed to make the necessary political decisions and therefore needed more time, reported another source.
The text is also not yet considered sufficiently balanced by some countries, which criticise it for being too flexible on the ‘responsibility’ aspect, particularly with regard to security measures and checks on migrants arriving at external borders.
Solidarity measures in favour of countries facing a crisis, a situation of force majeure or instrumentalisation, consisting in particular of stopping so-called ‘Dublin’ transfers (the country responsible for an asylum application would be authorised not to take back the applicant in the event of a crisis), are also among the points of divergence.
Dated 25 July, the text submitted to the ambassadors on Wednesday proposed, among other things, that Member States should not be obliged to apply the border procedure to all arrivals. This is achieved by lowering the mandatory threshold (the rate of recognition of asylum applications by nationality) to 5% (of positive decisions), whereas the Commission’s text on asylum procedures at the border makes this procedure mandatory as soon as a person comes from a country whose nationals receive on average less than 20% of positive asylum decisions.
Since the border procedure requires a certain amount of infrastructure and results in asylum seekers being detained, the text stated that “taking into account the need for flexibility in crisis situations, characterised by a mass influx of third-country nationals and stateless persons, or in cases of force majeure, it may be necessary to authorise Member States not to apply the border procedure to persons from third countries where the average recognition rate at EU level is less than 20%”.
At the same time, the text gave Member States the option of taking a decision on the basis of ‘merit’, as part of a border procedure, for people with an average of up to 75% positive asylum decisions. This provision is also intended to ease the workload of front-line countries faced with mass arrivals.
With regard to the detention of asylum seekers, the text in any case emphasised the general principle that asylum seekers should not be detained.
As a general rule, “minors should not be detained but be placed in accommodation with special provisions for minors, including where appropriate in non-custodial, community-based placements”.
Nor should minors “be separated from their parents or carers, and the principle of family unity should generally lead to the use of adequate alternatives to detention for families with minors”, the text continued.
Link to the latest project: https://aeur.eu/f/888 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)