On Wednesday 20 September, the members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties took a stand against the Council of the EU, which has still not adopted its mandate on the last text of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, namely the ‘Crisis’ Regulation, which organises solidarity between Member States in emergency situations or in cases of force majeure.
They have decided to suspend political negotiations on the regulations that have made the most progress in the negotiation phase, namely ‘migrant screening’ and ‘Eurodac’.
However, they decided to continue with the technical work, with the competent rapporteurs still aiming to be ready for a political agreement with the Council of the EU on these two texts as soon as it has adopted its mandate on ‘Crisis’, brought to Parliament by Spanish MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D).
On the other hand, trilogue negotiations will continue on the two other flagship regulations of the ‘Pact’, namely the regulation on asylum and migration management (RAMM, previously the Dublin Regulation) and the regulation on asylum procedures (APR). Three trilogues were held last week in Strasbourg and further political meetings on RAMM and APR are still planned for the next plenary session in Strasbourg.
This decision was taken because of the EU Council’s failure to fulfil its promise to validate its mandate on ‘Crisis’ before the summer, in accordance with the Joint Roadmap signed in September 2022 by the two institutions.
Parliament therefore wishes to exert pressure on the Council of the EU to validate this latest mandate, even though the five texts of the Pact, including ‘Crisis’, are closely linked.
On Wednesday morning, the various rapporteurs also took stock of the negotiations underway.
On Eurodac, the future large-scale database on migration, asylum and returns, Jorge Buxadé (ECR, Spanish) indicated that agreement still needed to be reached on security alerts in the database, the inclusion of a category for people with temporary protection in the EU, and the inclusion of the entry/exit system and access to national databases. “Interrupting negotiations at the political level does not prevent us from reaching an agreement at the technical level”, said the rapporteur.
On the RAMM text, the Swedish rapporteur, Tomas Tobé (EPP), praised the Commission’s accompanying work and felt that there was “no room for failure” on the ‘Pact’ texts.
Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, French), rapporteur on APR, explained that the points on free legal aid for asylum seekers and guarantees for minors remained open. Discussions will now begin on Chapter 3 and, in particular, the controversial border procedure. “The aim is to reach a general political agreement in December, but this will depend on progress on the other issues of the Pact”.
Still no indication from the Spanish Presidency on the mandate of the regulation
The Member States, for their part, discussed the agenda for the ‘Home Affairs’ Council meeting on 28 September in Brussels on Wednesday morning; while some of them requested that the ‘Crisis’ Regulation be put on the agenda with a view to its adoption, the Spanish Presidency gave no precise indication of its intentions.
By the morning, at any rate, it had reported a lack of progress on the dossier to the various European Parliament rapporteurs for the ‘Pact’, meeting in the ‘Asylum Contact Group’ with the Council of the EU, and did not seem in a position to put the dossier on the agenda for 28 September.
During this discussion, the Member States also expressed the hope that the discussion scheduled for 28 September on the external dimension of migration would be an opportunity for the Commission to provide them with more concrete information on the implementation of the EU-Tunisia agreement, in particular on the first payments. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)