In six months, between June 6 and 9, 2024, more than 450 million European citizens are called to the polls and one of the policies that voters will look at with a magnifying glass will be asylum and immigration. “When we went to the elections in 2019 it was the main concern and we did not have an answer,” the president of the European Parliament acknowledged this Wednesday, Roberta Metsola. Five years later, the Council and the European Parliament have managed to weave an agreement that “although it is not perfect” nor “does it offer solutions to all complex problems” it is “much better than what we had before” and “probably the most important legislative agreement of this mandate “, has added.
The last stage, before regulations and directives become mandatory for the Twenty-seven, will be to achieve the endorsement of the plenary session of the European Parliament and one qualified majority in the Council –Hungary and Slovakia They have already announced this Wednesday their rejection – during the first months of 2024 so that it can be definitively closed before the next European elections and prevent it from being used again as a weapon by the extreme right in the campaign. These are the five pillars of the new system.
Prior border control
The system includes a new expedited procedure of the people who arrive. It will apply to all those who do not meet the conditions to enter the EU, who have been detained irregularly entering outside border crossings or disembarking after a search and rescue operation, or who have requested international protection at a border. It will last at most seven days and will serve to verify identity, take fingerprints and photography in addition to carrying out a health, security and vulnerability check, with safeguards for minors who will have the right to a representative and a mechanism for monitoring fundamental rights to protect those subjected to exam.
Member States will have to establish “reception centres” to carry out the examination, which will be located at or near the external borders, as well as at other locations within the territory. Brussels denies that they are going to be “new Morias“, in reference to the refugee camp of Lesbos overcrowded with asylum seekers and devastated by fire in 2020. “We are establishing adequate reception conditions, with many safeguards for individuals, access to asylum procedures, and guarantees to ensure that they are not overcrowded and a mandatory solidarity system,” the interior commissioner has assured, Ylva Johannson.
Data from 6 years of age
The reform will allow updating the large scale database which has already existed since 2003 and to which the Twenty-seven, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein have access. It was created to apply the Dublin regulation, the mechanism that establishes the criteria to determine which country is responsible for examining an asylum application and that establishes the standard of first entry. The agreement expands the database, introduces new categories and improves the way data is collected by moving from individual applications to a count per applicant to provide the EU with a system of ID more effective. The idea is to have “a clearer photo” of who is in Europe and who has requested asylum even if they did so in another country. For example, the threshold for collecting data – facial image, fingerprints, name, surname, nationality, date and place of birth as well as expulsion or relocation orders – will be lowered from 14 to 6 years. According to the European Parliament, this will facilitate the identification of unaccompanied minors who may escape from foster care institutions or children’s social services.
Most effective common procedures
The reform establishes a more effective and accelerated procedure, with a six month limit for a first decision. The idea is to ensure that resources are concentrated on cases of people eligible for international protection while avoiding saturation of the system with requests that have no basis to prosper. This fast track would come into play once the prior ‘screening’ has been completed and establishes the possibility of applying accelerated procedures at the borders of up to 12 weeks (plus another 12 weeks to complete the expulsion) for people considered dangerous for national security or public order, or if the applicant has deceived the authorities by presenting false identity or nationality information, as well as those from countries with asylum recognition rates below 20% will always be subject to the asylum procedure. border immediately after inspection.
The European Parliament has achieved that unaccompanied minors are exempt from the border procedure, unless they represent a risk. This will not be the case for families with minors, although they will not be a “priority”, and the Commission may recommend their suspension if adequate reception conditions are not met. The system includes the obligation to offer free legal advice to applicants in all administrative procedures and safeguards to ensure that Member States have adequate reception capacity. “When maximum capacity is reached, asylum seekers will be referred to the ordinary asylum procedure to avoid overcrowding“says the agreement.
Mandatory solidarity “à la carte”
Under the pact, all member states will have to contribute to helping EU countries under migration pressure. Instead of mandatory quotas per countryas the front-line countries in the Mediterranean wanted, a “solidarity“a la carte with three options: relocate asylum seekers – the goal is to redistribute 30,000 a year -, pay a contribution of 20,000 euros per person who refuses to relocate or with some type of contribution to finance personnel, facilities or technical equipment.
Each year a solidarity fund to contribute to. Countries under pressure will notify the Council and Commission of their intention to use the fund. People applying for protection will not be able to choose which country they want to examine their application or which country they want to be relocated to, and the rules include additional criteria for deciding which country is responsible such as diplomas obtained in a Member State, existing significant relationships and knowledge of the language. .
Response to crisis situations
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It is the rule that will be applied before exceptional situationsas migratory pressure rebounds in the face of a massive arrival as was experienced in the 2015 crisis, and the asylum system is affected by a crisis or force majeure. In these circumstances, national authorities may use a emergency mechanism with which to deal with an exceptional influx arriving by land, sea or air, including people disembarked in search and rescue operations.
The rules also cover the instrumentalization of migrants, i.e. when they are used by third countries or hostile non-state actors to destabilize the EU, and provide for a possible temporary exception to standard asylum procedures. For example, in crisis situations the registration of applications may be extended until 10 days and the border procedure will be extended by six more weeks each. In mass influx situations, the border procedure threshold will be applied to applicants with a recognition rate of up to 50%, while in instrumentalization situations, the border procedure will be applied to all arrivals.