The European Parliament has suspended negotiations on two files in the EU’s proposed migration pact if EU ministers do not proceed with the so-called ‘crisis management’ regulation, MEPs announced on Wednesday (20 September).
The decision was taken by MEPs in the Asylum Contact Group, a group of lawmakers on the Justice and Civil Liberties committee which lead the European Parliament’s negotiations on EU immigration and asylum reform.
The crisis management regulation provides an EU framework to deal with emergencies. According to the proposal, when a high number of people arrive at the EU border, the EU Commission has to decide whether to call a crisis situation or not. If this is the case, the member states have mandatory solidarity (therefore, they need to provide help to the countries that receive most of the migrants). Some EU countries that decide to be among those that receive migrants (the so-called “contributing countries), will have mandatory relocation.
The crisis management regulation was heavily discussed among member states, particularly by a group of governments that have contested the relocation mechanism, describing it as ‘mandatory’, despite member states deciding whether to be part of the contributing group.
In particular, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieski has contested the proposed law and has called a referendum on EU migration policy that will be held on 15 October on the same day as the next general election.
For this reason, the European Parliament decided to put on hold the talks on Eurodac and Screening, which will regulate the registration procedures of first arrivals at EU borders.
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The “lack of new ideas” offered by the EU and national governments to deal with migration is “the real crisis”, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday (19 September), following the recent spike in arrivals to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Suspending discussions
The ‘screening regulation’ seeks to tighten controls at external borders for third-country nationals and applies to people arriving ‘irregularly’ in Europe, and to those applying for international protection at a border cross-point.
The revision of the Eurodac file, meanwhile, concerns the rules governing the database to support asylum procedures with mandatory registration of biometric data, such as fingerprints and facial images.
“The Parliament has repeatedly stressed its commitment to a comprehensive reform of the European Union’s asylum and migration policy,” Elena Yoncheva, the Bulgarian socialist MEP who chairs the Asylum Contact Group, said in a statement.
“However, this is only possible if all aspects of this reform are addressed, including with regards to solidarity and fair share of responsibility between EU member states,” she said, adding that “the files of the Pact are interlinked and making progress on some proposals rather than others risks leading to a bottleneck in the negotiations.”
“The Crisis Regulation is an essential element of this reform, as it lays down a predictable EU mechanism to support member states facing sudden crisis situations in the field of migration and asylum,” said Yoncheva.
EURACTIV has learned from a diplomatic official source that the EU member states will try to smooth the negotiations on the crisis management to then lift the suspension on Eurodac and Screening.
In the meantime, the suspension risks reducing the chances of MEPs and ministers finalising the new laws before next June’s European elections, when all unfinished legislative files fall.
Parliament sources say that the Eurodac and Screening files have been prioritised by national governments because they are likely to tighten existing rules.
Migration control has been one of the most controversial topics of EU policy-making since 2015 when the European Commission set out plans to overhaul the bloc’s legal framework in response to the surge of migrants and asylum seekers fleeing civil war in Syria.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
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Source: euractiv.com
