Brussels, 16/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 16 October in Brussels, heads of state and government from the European Union definitively adopted the French proposed European Pact on Immigration and Asylum. At the end of the European Council, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “Europe now has a genuine immigration policy - it was both expected and inevitable”. It is true that the adoption of the pact, one of the French Presidency priorities, has been eclipsed by the impact of the financial crisis.
The pact conclusions adopted by the European Council stipulated “the commitment of the European Union and its member states to conduct a fair, effective and consistent policy for dealing with the challenges and opportunities which migration represents”. The pact constitutes a roadmap defining five priorities on immigration: legal and illegal immigration, the fight against illegal immigration, border control, Europe of asylum, and synergies between migration and development. For further information on the pact's contents: EUROPE 9748, 9752 and 9758. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, stressed that “adoption of the pact represents a definitive and common milestone in migration flow policy”. He also pointed out that the text put the principles of equality and solidarity between member states to the fore, as well as cooperation with the countries of origin. Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign affairs minister, affirmed optimistically that “with this pact, different rules in the member states will no longer exist”. He added that “everything the pact contains will no longer be done bilaterally but rather, at a level of European-level defined rules”. Although the text undeniably constitutes a turning point in European immigration and asylum policy, it is obvious that the Community did give some ground to the intergovernmental position, with the compromise text having to satisfy all member states, whatever their geographic location is. It is also less ambitious than what the French Presidency had initially hoped for, insofar as it focuses on listing a series of principles, which to a large extent resume the Community policy already in force. In certain points, such as the draft integration contract, obliging immigrants to learn the national language and European values or the ban on mass regularisations, which Paris was very keen on, have been withdrawn from the final text. Member states can, for example, only call for regularisations to be done on a “case by case” basis and not “in a generalised way”. Silvio Berlusconi, the president of the Italian Council, was pleased that “there will be no more polemic on Italian standards because they are more restrictive or severe: standards will be the same for all countries”. This position could lead some to think that, thanks to the pact, the EU will approve the security measures taken by Italy against the Rom people. Far from it, in fact, the Commission has recently threatened Italy with possible sanctions in the event of non-respect of European legislation (EUROPE 9748). On the other hand, Mr Berlusconi pointed out that the pact is “only political and not binding”. This time he is not wrong.
Although the conclusions affirm that the pact now constitutes “the basis, for the Union and its member states, of a common immigration and asylum policy, guided by a spirit of solidarity between member states and cooperation with third countries”, human rights and refugee organisations are critical of the security emphasised vision of the pact. Judith Kumin, the representative of the UN's High Commission for Refugees to the EU, indicated that “the pact recognises that the reinforcement of the EU's external borders should not impede access to protection. UNHCR calls on the EU to develop concrete measures to ensure that this is respected. A “Europe of asylum” cannot be built if people seeking protection cannot access the EU”. Although the great majority of MEPs welcomed adoption of the pact, some of them, such as the president of ALDE, Graham Watson (United Kingdom), remains concerned about how it will be put into practice and fears that the security aspects of it prevail over those linked to legal immigration. Watson declared that, whilst measures on illegal immigration are strengthened, there are, on the other hand, few to attract skilled foreign labour as part of legal immigration. Implementation of the pact will be the subject of an annual debate at the June 2010 European Council. (B.C./transl.rh)