Brussels
A la carte solidarity and accelerated asylum procedures with almost immediate application once they have been approved, the five new regulations reforming the European asylum system are intended to accelerate the processing of unfounded requests, to provide assistance more quickly and more substantially to countries under pressure or to better control who arrives on European territory and in what way.
These new provisions are also created to combat the exploitation of migratory flows by third countries. While the EU has recorded 355,000 irregular arrivals this year, so-called first entry countries like Italy and Greece will have to do more to retain people who have no chance of receiving protection.
In the event of a massive influx or obvious exploitation of migrants, as was the case in 2021 at the initiative of Belarus, these same countries will have the right to welcome them less well.
Member States argued in 2015 over the obligation, imposed by the Juncker Commission, to relocate 160,000 migrants from Italy and Greece, which was never done. The agreement aims to put an end to these psychodramas and leaves it to each Member State to choose how they can help. It still sets a target of 30,000 relocations each year, and each member country that does not want to welcome an asylum seeker will have to pay 20,000 euros per person concerned.
A “fair share” based on GDP and population will be calculated. Member States will also be able to provide money, equipment or human resources to contribute to the management of external borders. Some see this as an open door to European funds for anti-migrant walls. Solidarity will also involve not sending migrants back to the country of first entry. The Commission can always impose aid quotas if the account is not there.
Member States wanted to ensure that countries of first entry scrupulously control who crosses their borders without letting migrants slip towards neighboring countries. For five to seven days, everyone, including children, will be detained and subjected to security or health checks to quickly establish their profile. She will then be directed either to the normal asylum procedure, or to the return procedure or deportation to the border for people with little chance of obtaining asylum.
A new procedure at the border will make it possible in six months – including appeals – to render a negative asylum decision and a simultaneous return obligation for people whose nationality has a rate of less than 20% of positive responses for asylum: Turkey, Western Balkans, Georgia…
Countries of first entry will have to ensure that at least 30,000 beds (and up to 120,000 each year at EU level) are made available to them in detention centers pending the urgent examination of these requests. . Families with young children and unaccompanied minors listed as “at risk” are affected.
To refuse an asylum request and send the candidate back to a third country considered safe, it will be necessary to verify that they have a link with it. The agreement, however, says nothing about how to increase returns.
What to do with people who arrive in the EU pushed by malicious countries? Member States will be able to apply the border detention procedure to all migrants who arrive in this way and receive them less well than others.
The definition of instrumentalization will include third countries and all hostile non-state actors. In theory, it does not include NGOs if they do not aim to destabilize the EU. For situations comparable to that triggered by the war in Ukraine in 2022, or the massive influxes of 2015, countries of first entry will have extended deadlines to register files. Other member countries will also have to help in the form of relocations or via alternative measures.
Member States have refused to systematically extend the scope of family reunification to foreign nationals who wish to claim asylum in a country where their brother or sister already lives.
The new Dublin regulation, however, opens up a criterion of diploma obtained in a Member State. Member States will also be able to more quickly carry out transfers to the first responsible country, without having to wait for its green light.
