(Tiper Stock Exchange) – “Brussels is abusing its power. They want to relocate migrants to Hungary by force. This is unacceptable”. Thus the Hungarian premier, Viktor Orbán, on Facebook regarding the agreement reached yesterday at the EU Council on immigration against which Budapest and Warsaw spoke out.
The prime minister accused Brussels of wanting “use violence to turn Hungary into a country of migrants”. The new Migration Pact agreed yesterday in Luxembourg does not actually provide for the compulsory transfer of migrants but “the principle of solidarity”, with economic contributions or other aid.
Today, the interior ministers of the European Union, meeting in Luxembourg at the Internal Affairs Council, after 12 hours of negotiation and 2 attempts to vote, they indeed reached an agreement on the new Migration Pact. Broad support: in fact, only Hungary and Poland are against it, while Malta, Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria abstain. All others in favour, including Italy. For definitive approval, a common position must now be found with the European Parliament. The final point was to find a satisfactory text on the definition of safe third countries where it will be possible to send migrants who do not receive asylum.
In fact, the decision taken revolves around the asylum procedure and the management of asylum and migration, i.e. not the entire reform which would have been far more extensive. In fact, everything focuses on controls and responsibilities. It is not the individual migrant that counts but the “place” and since the application for asylum must be processed within 12 weeks it is estimated that the first year the ceiling will be 60,000 people, then 90,000 and finally 120,000. All distributed among the 27 on the basis of GDP and population. It will then be the Commission to establish whether a country needs solidarity in the event of a crisis. In that case he will be exempt from the EU border procedure and will be able to access the pool of 30,000 relocations. The novelty lies in the fact that Italy has obtained that these resources flow into a fund managed by Brussels to “implement concrete projects for the so-called external dimension”.
“This is really a big step! Congratulations to Commissioner Ylva Johansson and the Swedish EU Council for perseverance and hard work,” said the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, in a tweet, commenting on the agreement on the Migration Pact and asylum.