EU Council adopts EU Pact on Migration and Asylum reform

The Council on May 14, 2024 adopted what it described as a historic reform of the European migration and asylum system.

The reform, according to a statement by the Council, establishes a set of rules that will help manage arrivals in an orderly manner, create efficient and uniform procedures, and ensure fair burden sharing between Member States.

“The Pact on Migration and Asylum will ensure a fairer and stronger migration system that makes a real difference on the ground. These new rules will make the European asylum system more effective and increase solidarity between Member States. The European Union will also continue to cooperate closely with third countries to address the root causes of irregular migration. Only together can we find answers to the global challenge of migration,”
Nicole de Moor, Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration of Belgium was quoted to have said.

The statement by the EU reads thus:

Complete review of the EU migration and asylum system
The Council today adopted a total of 10 legislative acts reforming the entire European framework for the management of migration and asylum.

The Control Regulation will allow national authorities to refer irregular migrants and asylum seekers at an external border to the relevant procedure and will ensure that identification, security and vulnerability checks and health assessment are carried out in a uniform manner.

The new rules on the updated Eurodac database will make it possible to collect more accurate and complete data (including biometric data) on various categories of migrants, including applicants for international protection and people arriving in the EU irregularly. This will help inform policy development and improve the control of irregular migration and secondary displacements.

The Regulation on Asylum Procedures rationalizes the European asylum procedure and introduces a mandatory border procedure in well-defined cases. The Regulation on the Return Border Procedure deals with the returns of persons whose application in this border procedure has been rejected. The Regulation on Asylum and Migration Management determines which Member State is responsible for examining applications for international protection and introduces for the first time an equitable sharing of responsibility between Member States. Thanks to the Crisis Regulation , the EU will be better prepared to process asylum applications in exceptional circumstances.

The Recognition Regulation and the Reception Conditions Directive establish uniform standards for the criteria for the granting of international protection and the rules for the reception of asylum seekers. These rules should also help reduce secondary movements between Member States.

Finally, the Resettlement Regulation addresses safe and legal pathways to the EU by establishing common standards for resettlement and humanitarian admission.

Border procedure
The mandatory border procedure constitutes an important novelty of the reform. This procedure will apply to certain categories of asylum seekers (for example, those from countries with low asylum recognition rates). The purpose of the procedure is to quickly assess at the EU’s external borders whether applications are unfounded or inadmissible. People included in the asylum border procedure are not authorized to enter EU territory.

Responsibility and solidarity
The new rules clarify which Member State will be responsible for an asylum application (for example, in cases where a person has a relative in an EU country or where the asylum application is not submitted in the country to which the applicant asylum arrives in the EU for the first time).

Another important aspect of the reform of the migration system is the introduction of a solidarity mechanism to ensure a more equitable sharing of responsibility. The new rules combine mandatory solidarity to support Member States facing a large influx of migrants with flexibility regarding the type of contributions. Member States’ contributions may take the form of relocations, financial contributions or, where agreed with the beneficiary Member State, alternative solidarity measures (e.g. providing border guards or helping to set up reception centres).