The 27 countries of the European Union and MEPs agreed on European migration reform on Wednesday, December 20, alerting human rights defenders.
A few days after the adoption of the immigration law in France, the European Union agreed, Wednesday, December 20, on its reform of the migration system. Following discussions that lasted all night, representatives of the 27 EU countries and MEPs managed to agree on the Migration and Asylum Pact which is of great concern to human rights defenders. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed this “historic agreement” and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said it was “probably the most important legislative agreement of this mandate”. The migration pact was presented to the commission in September 2020. It provides for an overhaul of European rules.
“A historic failure”
The migration reform provides for reinforced controls on the arrival of migrants in the European Union, the facilitation of the return of people who do not have the right to asylum thanks to the construction of centers, which will also make it possible to welcome those who obtain the right . The pact also sets up a compulsory solidarity system between the different EU countries. A measure particularly appreciated by countries subject to migratory pressure such as Germany, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy but also France, who say they are relieved to “no longer feel alone”. The agreement reached by the EU will still need to be validated by the European Council and Parliament, with a goal of final adoption planned before the European elections in June 2024.
If EU members welcomed this agreement, human rights defenders consider this reform dangerous. Several sea rescue NGOs have denounced this set of texts as a “historic failure”. Amnesty International also warned of this agreement which would “increase the suffering” of refugees. The NGO Oxfam also believes that it reveals a “dangerous dismantling of key principles of human rights and refugee law”. Some MEPs also expressed regret about this pact “which shames Europe’s finest values”, as Damien Carême of the Greens confided. “We come out with a text which is worse than the current situation (…). We are going to finance walls, barbed wire, protection systems all over Europe”, deplores the French MEP.