Following a political provisional agreement on the migration pact reached by EU institutions last December, the European Parliament will hold the first vote of formal approval in its plenary session in April, according to a note from the Parliament’s agenda-setting body, seen by Euractiv.
In the EU legislative process, after EU lawmakers reach a provisional political agreement in interinstitutional negotiations (the so-called ‘trilogue’), the co-legislators, namely the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and EU ministers, have to formally approve the sealed deal in two separate votes.
According to the note of the Conference of Presidents, the European Parliament’s body responsible for defining the plenary sessions agenda, the current timeline set up on Wednesday (31 January) foresees the vote in the civil liberties parliamentary committee (LIBE) in February, the technical adjustments in March, and the vote in April.
According to the note, the European People’s Party (EPP) asked to vote on the migration pact no later than March.
The April plenary will be the last session of this mandate, before the next European elections in June.
The migration package is a group of five regulations that the EU institutions have negotiated throughout this mandate, since September 2020, when the European Commission published the legislative proposals.
Since then, the European Parliament and EU ministers negotiated a common position and eventually reached a deal in December 2023.
EU institutions reach comprehensive deal on migration
EU institutions have reached a political agreement on five regulations that, for the first time, will lay down a harmonised approach to migration management for Europe, though NGOs have criticised the deal as going against basic human rights.
The laws – Eurodac, Screening, Asylum Procedure Regulation, Regulation on Asylum Migration Management, and the Crisis Management Regulation – will provide EU rules on the management of non-Europeans arriving on EU soil and will have a critical impact on what will happen at the borders.
In December, the agreement was welcomed by the European Commission as the first deal on EU migration management after many years of attempts to find a harmonised EU-wide approach to border control.
In December, 55 civil society organisations signed a common statement that opposed the approval of the migration pact, saying that “in its current form, the Pact greenlights detention, pushbacks, and racial profiling, effectively undermining the fundamental human right to seek safety,” the letter argued.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
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Source: euractiv.com
