2023-06-09 09:01:09
The ministers in charge of migration, who are taking part in a “Justice and Home Affairs” Council in Luxembourg on Thursday and Friday, reached an agreement on an asylum reform which provides in particular for a system of solidarity between Member States in taking responsibility for refugees and an accelerated examination of asylum applications, explained the minister whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.
The agreement, adopted by a qualified majority, relates in particular to a mechanism of solidarity between Member States, compulsory but “flexible”, to better distribute the care of asylum seekers.
A compromise was also reached with a view to setting up an accelerated procedure, at the EU’s external borders, for the examination of applications and the return of migrants not entitled to asylum.
This agreement required a qualified majority (at least 15 countries out of 27, representing at least 65% of the population of the Member States). In the end, only Hungary and Poland voted once morest, while the Czech Republic, Malta, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania abstained.
Both texts will now be negotiated with the EU legislative body, with the aim of completing the reform before the end of the legislature, in the first half of 2024.
On this occasion, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson welcomed a “very important step” for the Asylum and Migration Pact, presented in September 2020.
The question of the reform of the asylum system has returned to the top of the EU agenda, in a context marked by the increase in the arrival of migrants in the Union since the end of the pandemic and the repercussions of the conflict in Ukraine.
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