Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council were continuing their discussions on the regulations for the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ on Tuesday 19 December at the time of going to press.
After finding it impossible to reach agreement on the four regulations in question (screening of migrants, asylum and migration management or AMMR, asylum procedures or APR, crisis situations and force majeure or 'Crisis') at around 1am on the night of Monday 18 to Tuesday 19, the co-legislators resumed their work in the middle of the day with successive trilogues due to conclude at the end of the day with the trilogue on the ‘Crisis’ regulation, followed by a plenary meeting.
On the other hand, negotiations were to continue in writing on the Eurodac regulation, with a provisional agreement having been reached on the inclusion of the category of persons with temporary protection, the details of which have yet to be finalised.
Under this agreement, law enforcement authorities would also have direct access to Eurodac, thus avoiding a so-called ‘cascade’ check before accessing Eurodac. Member States would also be able to insert security alerts into Eurodac for people who pose a threat to internal security. In exchange, the European Parliament is said to have obtained the removal of the links with the entry/exit system, although some sources on Tuesday considered this concession by the EU Council to be quite minor.
As for the rest of the ‘Crisis’ regulation, discussions during the day focused on the definition of instrumentalisation, the extension of derogations and the raising of the thresholds provided for in the APR text on the border procedure (applied to people whose country generally receives less than 20% positive rates on asylum applications).
On the APR, the first day of trilogues did not produce any major advances, with the EU Council remaining firm in its rejection of the exclusion of minors and families from the border procedure.
By way of concessions, the Spanish Presidency had opened a door on the prioritisation of cases, i.e. the priority given to the most vulnerable persons, and the two parties had begun technical work on how to improve accommodation for families.
With regard to the AMMR, the aim was still to consolidate the solidarity mechanism and back it up with concrete measures for countries under pressure, but the Spanish Presidency had been firm in recent days that the EU Council’s mandate, adopted in June and providing for various solidarity measures ranging from (non-compulsory) relocations to financial aid and assistance with external border management, represented the only possible balance.
Other points under discussion included specific solidarity measures for people rescued at sea, financial compensation and appeals against decisions to transfer asylum seekers.
The discussion on the criterion of family reunification to determine the responsibility of a Member State in an asylum application, although rejected by the EU Council, was also proving difficult, according to some sources.
On screening, the two parties had also failed to make progress at the start of the day on two crucial points for the European Parliament: the location of these controls in the border area and the extension of the mechanism for monitoring respect for fundamental rights to border management. EUROPE will continue to follow this story. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)