The political agreement reached today by the European Parliament and the Council on the Pact on Migration and Asylum constitutes a major breakthrough towards a common system for managing migration in the EU.
The agreement covers five key proposals of the Pact:
- Screening Regulation: creating uniform rules concerning the identification of non-EU nationals upon their arrival, thus increasing the security within the Schengen area.
- Eurodac Regulation: developing a common database gathering more accurate and complete data to detect unauthorised movements.
- Asylum Procedures Regulation: making asylum, return and border procedures quicker and more effective.
- Asylum Migration Management Regulation: establishing a new solidarity mechanism amongst Member States to balance the current system where a few countries are responsible for the vast majority of asylum applications, and clear rules on responsibility for asylum applications.
- Crisis and Force majeure Regulation: ensuring that the EU is prepared in the future to face situations of crisis, including instrumentalisation of migrants.
Once these proposals are formally adopted by the European Parliament and Council, the pillars of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum will be in place.
The Commission presented the New Pact on Migration and Asylum in September 2020, with the aim of finding long-term and sustainable solutions to managing migration. The Pact will create a legal framework that balances solidarity and responsibility between Member States, in a comprehensive approach to managing migration effectively and fairly .
President Ursula von der Leyen said: "Europe is a strong community and capable of finding great answers to great challenges. I welcome the timely political agreement reached by Parliament and Council on the key elements of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. Our goal was to find a fair and pragmatic approach to managing migration together in the EU. It is a crucial step in making sure that Europe has the tools to manage migration."
The agreement reached today reflects the commitment to manage migration in a fair and orderly way, allowing the Union and its Member States to move from ad-hoc to long-term and sustainable solutions. Until these new rules are fully applicable, the Commission stands ready to continue working with the European Parliament and the Council. The scope is clear, to ensure adoption on all Pact files by the end of this legislative mandate.
