Strengthening controls at external borders, tightening the right to asylum, 'waiting zones' for immigrants in frontline countries such as Spain and fines of 20,000 euros per person for Member States that reject their quota of refugees. The European Union toughens its immigration policy in order to reduce the number of irregular entries and remove arguments from far-right forces, which are rising in all polls regarding the European elections in June.
This Wednesday, the plenary session of the European Parliament gave its final approval to the dozen legislative texts that make up the new Migration and Asylum Pact, presented by the Commission of Ursula von der Leyen in September 2020. The vote has been briefly interrupted by a group of attendees shouting “This pact kills, vote no.”
The content of the reform was already agreed with the governments in December during the Spanish presidency of the EU. Popular, socialists and liberals have voted mostly in favorwhile the Greens and the radical left and right (although for opposite reasons) have rejected the Pact.
[La UE creará “zonas de espera” para inmigrantes en los países de entrada hasta decidir su futuro]
The Pact still needs to undergo a final vote among member states (probably on April 29), where it is guaranteed a sufficient majority to move forward. Hungary is expected to vote against it and probably Poland too, despite the change of government. The new prime minister, Donald Tusksaid this Wednesday that his country will not accept any migrant quota.
The reform aims to bring order to the chaos of community migration policy, which since the 2015 refugee crisis has become one of the most toxic and divisive problems in the EU. The inability shown by Europe when it comes to managing the flows of migrants and asylum seekers is also one of the factors on which it has ridden the rise of far-right parties in many Member States.
The reform toughens asylum with the creation of a new border procedure, whose objective is quickly evaluate at the external borders of the EU whether the requests are unfounded or inadmissible and, where appropriate, execute return decisions, within a maximum period of six months. Persons subject to the asylum border procedure will not be authorized to enter the territory of the Member State.
For this reason, the new Pact will force countries that are on the front line such as Italy, Spain or Greece to implement 'reception centers' at the border where asylum applications must be examined. At EU level, the regulation sets the adequate capacity in 30,000 peoplebut the distribution between the Member States has not yet been calculated.
The plenary session of the European Parliament, during the vote this Wednesday in Brussels
The other great novelty of the reform is the creation of a voluntary mechanism for the distribution of migrants, whose objective is redistribute at least 30,000 people a year between member states. Countries that refuse to accept migrants must pay a penalty of 20,000 euros per person or provide some other type of help to those affected by migratory pressure. That is to say, it is an à la carte solidarity system without the mandatory quotas requested by Spain, Italy or Greece.
Another piece of the Migration Pact is the new Eurodac regulation -whose speaker is the head of Vox in Brussels, Jorge Buxadé-, which hardens the identification process upon arrival: requires everyone over 6 years of age to be registered with a photo and fingerprints to create a common database.
In this database, authorities will be able to record if Someone may pose a security threat if the person is violent or illegally armed. In fact, the reform introduces cmandatory safety and health controls for people entering the EU irregularly.
The reform has been harshly criticized by humanitarian organizations that work with migrants. The new Migration Pact “will result in widespread arrestsincluding families and children, rushed asylum procedures with limited safeguards and poor reception standards in tense border countries,” denounces Cáritas.
“The European Parliament has voted in favor of a system based on detention, deterrence and deportation. This is an abolition of the right to seek asylum in the EU. “Today is a shameful day for human rights,” Oxfam denounced.
