The inconsistent migratory path of the Annecy suspect, present in France where he applied for asylum while he already had subsidiary protection in Sweden, reopened Thursday the debate on the reception of refugees in Europe. Coincidentally, on Thursday 8 June, the interior ministers of the member states took a decisive step in adopting a reform of the EU's migration policy, after tough negotiations that highlight persistent fractures within the EU on this sensitive issue.
This "migration package" has been under discussion since 2019, after a first attempt to reform asylum law in Europe failed following the wave of refugees arriving in 2015. It tries to respond to the pressure exerted on Member States, which are again facing sharply rising asylum applications (+52% in 2022). In principle, it intends to strengthen the tightness of borders with regard to migrants who are not eligible for asylum, while allowing European solidarity in the sharing of refugees, in order to relieve the countries "on the front line" (Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Italy, Malta... and to a lesser extent the France).
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On the other hand, the reform is supposed to be tougher for asylum seekers: it provides for a "screening regulation" to ensure a more efficient screening of migrants arriving illegally at the EU's borders, as well as a simplification of the procedure to redirect rejected asylum seekers outside the Union more quickly.
But on the flip side, new rights are introduced by one of the four draft regulations forming part of the "migration package", to strengthen the prerogatives of long-term residents in the EU and in particular to facilitate their mobility within Europe.
Creation of a post of "Relocation Coordinator"
Above all, this reform proposes centralised management of the distribution of asylum seekers, who will be relocated compulsorily to the various Member States, after a certain emergency threshold in the face of a large influx in a frontline country. In total, we are talking about 30 000 asylum seekers to be distributed among the Member States. This "obligation" having been the subject of lively discussions between the Ministers of the Interior, it has been replaced by a financial sanction provided for against recalcitrant Member States: they will have to pay a financial contribution of €20,000 for each migrant they refuse to welcome, among those imposed by the future "European Relocation Coordinator" (appointed by the Commission). An "obligation that does not say its name", castigate MEPs hostile to this reform.
Giorgia Meloni's Italy, regularly confronted with influxes of asylum seekers disembarked on its shores, applauded with both hands - to the point that the deputies of the Northern League and Fratelli d'Italia stood out, in a preliminary vote, from their allies in the National Rally. But Hungary and Poland voted against, while Bulgaria, Malta, Lithuania and Slovakia abstained. Not enough to constitute a blocking majority, however. As the examination of asylum and immigration texts follows an ordinary legislative procedure, unanimity of the Member States is not required in the Council. Parliament, for its part, has already had the opportunity to express its overwhelming support for the reform.
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Talks are continuing between the two institutions, ahead of a vote in the European Parliament that will probably take place in the autumn: the Commission intends to have the migration package definitively adopted before the next European elections in June 2024.
Poland, which has already taken in a million Ukrainian refugees since the outbreak of the war, has already indicated, through its minister Bartosz Grodecki, that it would refuse to pay the financial contributions demanded in return for its opposition to the reception of asylum seekers on its soil.
