EU countries will not be obliged to take over asylum seekers from other EU countries. In a new asylum pact, the European Commission meets the resistance of some EU countries like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which have refused for years to provide shelter to refugees.
However, the European Commission wants to set up a system for crisis situations in which EU countries contribute financially to the reception in other EU countries. Also, EU countries that do not want to host refugees themselves must adopt the reception or repatriation of a number of migrants in other countries.
The focus of the European migration policy must be on the return of hopeless asylum seekers. This procedure must be faster and better, according to the daily EU administration.
Brussels also wants improved reception centers 'at the borders' of the EU (in Turkey, Lebanon, or North Africa) where refugees can be quickly identified, screened, and registered. Within five days, it must be clear whether an asylum seeker qualifies for a residence permit or must be sent back.
The European Parliament will discuss the new strategy on Thursday morning in Brussels with European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas and Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson. They will present the proposal for the new Asylum and Migration Pact to the members of the parliamentary committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).
The European Commission is definitively abandoning the idea launched in 2016 that member states could be forced to accept asylum seekers, as it tried to do during the 2015 migration crisis. That proposal was never accepted by EU heads of government because too many countries were opposed.
Instead, there will be a donation and adoption system. If the pressure on southern EU countries becomes too great, other countries must step in. They must then take care of rejected asylum seekers in one of those overloaded countries and ensure their return to their country of origin.
If countries choose to co-finance and adopt, they have almost a year to arrange the return. If that does not succeed, they must still take in the asylum seeker themselves and subsequently continue working on the return from their own country. EU countries and the European Parliament must agree to the new legislative proposals. This may take at least another year.
In an initial reaction, Dutch PvdA MEP Kati Piri said “that the right to apply for asylum within the European Union remains intact. And all requests are still individually assessed. Those basic principles are good,” according to Kati Piri.
She also called it logical that more effort is made to return people who do not have the right to asylum. That currently concerns almost two-thirds of all asylum seekers. However, she noted that this proposal mainly seems to show solidarity with EU countries, but the question is how much solidarity it has with the refugees?
The ambitions for a new policy are good according to the Christian Union’s European faction, but MEP Van Dalen is concerned about the feasibility of the plans. Van Dalen described the migration problem on the Greek island of Lesbos as large and therefore said this plan must not fail. “Solidarity alone will not be enough. It is rightly stated that all EU countries must contribute financially or host refugees. If not, sanctions must be imposed in the form of cuts to European funds.”