On Thursday 29 January, the College of Commissioners adopted two new twin strategies, one on migration and asylum and the “first comprehensive EU visa strategy”, designed to “define a new way forward for a balanced migration policy”, in the words of the Commission’s Executive Vice-President, Henna Virkkunen, who presented the main objectives at a press conference.
Illegal migration. Also present, Magnus Brunner, the Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, presented these strategies as “the next chapter” in an overall management strategy aimed, as he has said several times, at “bringing our European House in order”.
With six months to go before the entry into force of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, the Commissioner expressed his determination “to set a new course for who can come into the European Union, who can stay and who has to leave”. What is at stake, he said, is “people’s trust in what we are doing in the EU” and “the pressure on the Member States”.
The ‘Migration and Asylum Strategy’ therefore includes the deployment of the EES/ETIAS system for advanced digital border control, a revision of the Frontex Regulation, the creation of “return hubs” in third countries and €3 billion in aid to Member States to implement the Pact, as well as a European list of ‘safe countries of origin’ and an expanded concept of ‘safe third countries’ (see EUROPE 13795/14). In addition, it provides for greater use of “migration diplomacy”, advocating the use of commercial, financial and visa-related arguments as “levers” to conclude partnerships with third countries.
Visas and job mobility. The strategy on visas, developed to use this instrument in a more “coordinated and assertive way”, according to the Executive Vice-President, includes a revision of the Visa Code to strengthen the levers on returns and security, long-term multiple visas for so-called ‘trusted’ travellers, a common list of verified companies to speed up business visas, and the complete digitisation of procedures by 2028. One recommendation also targets the attraction of talent with ‘Legal Gateway’ offices, such as the one soon to be opened in India (see EUROPE 13785/1) and simplifications for students and researchers.
As soon as these measures were announced, they were criticised. Green MEP Mélissa Camara (Greens/EFA, French) accused the Commission of “once again giving in to the mortifying fantasies of the far right” by prioritising the reduction of “allegedly illegal immigration” rather than “organising a dignified reception and treatment for exiles”. Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer for the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), also regretted that these measures “transform visas, trade and development aid into tools for blackmailing third countries into cooperating with expulsions”. The EuroMed Rights network, for its part, denounced a policy likely to strengthen regimes “where serious human rights violations are documented on a daily basis”.
Strategies: https://aeur.eu/f/khb; https://aeur.eu/f/khc (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)