Since the start of 2023, Europe has been experiencing a wave of migration that promises to be historic. At the start of the week, 7,000 migrants arrived in less than 24 hours on the Italian island of Lampedusa where the authorities immediately declared a state of emergency. Italy has been calling for a reform of the Dublin Regulation for many years, overwhelmed by the flows which have intensified since the beginning of the 2010s. Why have successive attempts at reform never succeeded? Why are member countries struggling to reach an agreement? Le Figaro takes stock.
After her election as President of the European Commission in December 2019, Ursula von der Leyen promised to “abolish” the Dublin Regulation and “replace it with a new European system of migration governance”. Three years later, the new pact, discussed for several years, is still being negotiated. European interior ministers reached an agreement last June. This agreement paves the way for talks with the European Parliament with a view to adopting the reform before the European elections in June 2024.
It attempts to respond to the pressure exerted on Member States, once again faced with sharply increasing asylum requests (52% in 2022). In principle, it intends to strengthen the sealing of borders with regard to migrants not eligible for the right to 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 France).
This reform proposes centralized management of the distribution of asylum seekers, who will be compulsorily relocated in the different Member States. This “obligation” having been the subject of heated discussions between the Ministers of the Interior, it was replaced by a financial sanction planned against recalcitrant Member States: they will have to pay a financial contribution of €20,000 for each migrant they ’they will refuse to welcome.
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The reform also provides for a “filtering regulation” to ensure more effective sorting of migrants presenting illegally at the EU borders, as well as a simplification of the procedure to more quickly redirect people whose right to asylum has been rejected out of the EU. The union.
If Giorgia Meloni’s Italy applauds with both hands a reform that it has been demanding for a long time, Hungary and Poland voted against. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki even announced in August that a referendum would be held on this new European policy for welcoming migrants. The fine of 20,000 euros will “not be accepted by citizens”, the minister also warned in June, recalling that Poland had already welcomed the largest contingent of Ukrainian refugees since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
In addition to these two countries, Bulgaria, Malta, Lithuania and Slovakia abstained. Not enough, however, to constitute a blocking majority. As the examination of texts relating to asylum and immigration follows an ordinary legislative procedure, unanimity of Member States is not required in the Council. Parliament has already had the opportunity to express its overwhelming support for the reform.
This system of distribution of migrants between the countries of the Union, which dates back to 2013 in its third version, stipulated that any asylum seeker had to submit his application in the first country where he entered and where he was registered. It is up to this country to process his file and expel him if his request is rejected.
But since the explosion of migratory flows in 2015, this system has shown its limits. The number of first-time applicants in Europe increased from 563,000 in 2014 to nearly 1.3 million in 2015 and the pressure became too great. The countries affected by the arrival of migrants no longer wanted – and were no longer able to – take on the responsibility of welcoming and registering all newly arrived migrants.
To remedy the problem, a distribution mechanism was devised, based on the principle that the reception capacity must depend to a certain extent on the demographic and economic weight of the country. A first reform was thus attempted following the migratory wave of 2015, by including a corrective mechanism making it possible to force countries depending, for example, on their country’s GDP to welcome migrants.
A second attempt of the same ilk, called Dublin IV, was put in place, but, like the first, failed. At issue: the disagreement between the countries of the Union and, on the one hand, the countries on the front line such as Italy, which considered these reforms insufficient. Italy was demanding in particular permanent quotas and above all reception centers for migrants on the other side of the Mediterranean so as to no longer be faced with the fait accompli of massive crossings. On the other hand, the countries of the Visegrad group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) have always ostensibly refused any principle of solidarity in favor of the principle of responsibility specific to the initial Dublin agreement.