EU Sets Deadline for Member Countries to Apply New Migration, Asylum Law

An overcrowded boat waits to be rescued by Sea Watch 3 in the Mediterranean Sea on Aug. 2, 2021. (Sea-Watch.org via AP)

The European Union’s new rules on asylum and migration are finally being rolled out, after years of political wrangling, marked by shifting attitudes toward immigration across the continent.

Eight years in the making, the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum was agreed upon by lawmakers in April, although the finer details had yet to be hammered out by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission.

Those bureaucratic details, mostly in the form of demands on member states, were announced on June 12 in the commission’s implementation plan.

In the “Common Implementation Plan for the Pact on Migration and Asylum,” the European Commission set out key milestones and guidelines for all 27 EU member states to devise national implementation plans for the pact by the end of this year and start applying the new laws by mid-2026.

The pact requirements, mainly focused on the screening, reception, and deportation of illegal immigrants, are interdependent and need to be implemented in parallel, according to the commission.

According to the commission’s guidelines, member countries are required to register and screen all illegal immigrants for their identity, vulnerability, health, and any potential security risk, the commission stated. The procedures for asylum and deportation of non-EU nationals who have illegally entered the European Union should be “fast, efficient, and streamlined,” according to the commission’s statement.

EU countries should apply a “mandatory border procedure” for illegal immigrants who pose a security risk or don’t qualify for refugee status or other international protection, the commission stated.

The EU’s executive requires countries to provide asylum applicants with a standard of living adequate to their needs, including shortened waiting periods for work permits and physical and mental health care for applicants and their families.

Countries can demand that asylum-seekers stay in a designated area as a condition for receiving benefits and can provide only for basic needs for applicants who are in transit to another destination country, according to the statement.

EU member states should also ensure that the fundamental rights of asylum applicants, such as “human dignity and a genuine and effective right to asylum including for the most vulnerable, such as children,” are protected, according to the commission. Countries should also increase efforts related to the “integration and inclusion of migrants.”

The commission emphasized the need to develop effective deportation procedures to return illegal immigrants who are denied asylum or pose a security threat to EU countries.

The commission also stressed that EU nations need to upgrade Eurodac—the EU’s existing fingerprint information system—to add facial images and additional information for illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers. The enhancement is “a critical precondition for the implementation of all the other elements of the pact,” the European Commission stated.

Solidarity Mechanism Distributes Burden  

The implementation plan enforces the “solidarity” provisions of the Migration and Asylum Pact.

The pact establishes a “new mandatory solidarity mechanism” that will require all EU members to help other members overwhelmed by mass illegal immigration. The EU will create an annual pool to which each EU member will have to contribute with either relocation of illegal immigrants to its territory or money.

The EU will assign each country an annual contribution quota, based on its population and its gross domestic product. While the country has to contribute its assigned quota, it’s free to decide on the type of contribution, which may be in the form of taking illegal immigrants to its territory or covering the costs for other EU countries to take immigrants.

Margaritis Schinas, European Commission vice-president for promoting the European way of life, said in a statement that the implementation plan is “a blueprint” to help EU countries make the migration pact “a reality on the ground.”

Dr. Marcin Kedzierski, an assistant professor with the international relations department at Krakow University of Economics in Poland, said that the Pact on Migration and Asylum is “some kind of step forward” when compared to the EU’s initial proposal to address the immigration crisis in 2015.

People wait to be checked after disembarking from the Italian Coast Guard vessel Peluso as they arrive in the Sicilian port town of Augusta, Italy, on June 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Francesco Malavolta)

In 2015, about 1.3 million people, mostly fleeing wars in Syria and Iraq, sought refuge in Europe. At that time, the EU’s asylum system collapsed, reception centers in Greece and Italy were overwhelmed, and countries further north built barriers to stop illegal immigrants from entering.

At that time, the EU floated the idea of relocating refugees and immigrants from one member country to another member country to tackle the crisis, Mr. Kedzierski told The Epoch Times in a June 7 interview.

The recent immigration pact uses a different approach, he explained. For example, Italy, largely surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, may not have the capacity to carry out asylum procedures for all non-EU nationals reaching the country.

The main routes used by migrants from Africa and some other countries to reach the EU are via the Mediterranean Sea.

The EU’s Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, reported in March that the agency detected roughly 380,000 illegal border crossings into the EU in 2023, a 17 percent increase from the prior year, according to a Frontex annual brief.

The new pact stipulates that a country such as Italy can send some of the asylum-seekers arriving at its border to countries in northern Europe such as Poland, Sweden, Denmark, or others, according to Mr. Kedzierski. Those countries are supposed to process illegal immigrants and either grant them asylum or deport them, he said.

“If those other countries do not have asylum centers and do not want to carry out immigrant screening procedures, they must pay those countries that can carry out such procedures,” he said.

“The migration pact places a very strong emphasis on the vetting aspect and the deportation aspect.”

It addresses the high ineffectiveness of the system of deportation from the European Union, according to Mr. Kedzierski.

Germany, for example, processed and screened immigrants fleeing the war in Syria in 2015, many of whom were granted asylum. However, the country was unable to deport those who were denied asylum, he said, noting that this exposed a significant weakness in the EU’s deportation system.

Aid Plan for Africa

Earlier this year, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni unveiled a plan to curb illegal immigration from Africa by boosting the continent’s economic ties with Europe. Named the Mattei Plan after the late Enrico Mattei, founder of the Italian state oil company Eni, the plan aims to bolster the African energy and agriculture sectors.

Strengthening local economies in Africa is a way of dissuading disaffected young Africans from migrating north, Ms. Meloni said. The Italian government pledged an initial 5.5 billion euros ($5.95 billion) in loans, grants, and state guarantees and is seeking help from the private sector and international bodies such as the EU.

The EU has been debating the idea of creating a large aid plan for Africa for a long time, according to Mr. Kedzierski. In 2017, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani called for a “Marshall Plan for Africa” valued at 40 billion euros ($43 billion).

The Marshall Plan was a U.S. aid program to rebuild Western Europe after the devastation of World War II.

“[However,] at the end of the day, there is always a question, who will pay for it, and no one wants to,” Mr. Kedzierski said.

After the immigration crisis in 2015, the rate of migration slowed because the EU paid Turkey and some African countries to block immigration, he said.

A Turkish flag at the refugee camp for Syrian refugees in Islahiye, Turkey, on March 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In 2016, an agreement between the EU and Turkey was signed to prevent immigrants from flooding into Europe. In return, the European Union agreed to provide financial aid to Turkey to cover the costs of hosting refugees.

However, the political situation has changed, and it’s no longer possible to pay countries to stop migration, Mr. Kedzierski asserted.

“It’s impossible to physically stop this [mass migration] if living conditions in North Africa do not radically improve,” Mr. Kedzierski said. “Even if boats with migrants sink in the Mediterranean, it will not make more migrants stop sailing [to Europe].”

The recent summit of the Group of Seven (G7), which met last week in Italy, “welcomed” the Mattei Plan for Africa, according to a joint statement by G7 leaders representing Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States.

The Italian private sector has already made some investments, and the plan is open to international contributions, according to a G7 statement.