The European Union’s Pact on Migration and Asylum
The European Parliament has adopted its Pact on Migration and Asylum, a comprehensive package of regulations and directives that seeks to update EU policies on migrants and refugees. The pact is a legacy of the 2015 migration crisis when EU countries saw more than 1 million people claim asylum after arriving, mainly by boat, to European countries.
Background and Key Provisions
The 2015 migration crisis overwhelmed front-line European countries, including Greece and Italy, prompting anti-migrant violence and a backlash from far-right political parties. Some European states closed their borders, trapping thousands of people in Greece living in tent cities. The pact aims to prevent future crises by tightening borders and making it easier to deport asylum applicants.
Substantively, the pact consists of six major reforms:
* Expanding the EU biometric database for asylum seekers to include fingerprints, face photos and biographical information of all individuals aged 6 and above.
* Continuing the Dublin Regulation, which requires asylum applications to be reviewed by the first member state they enter.
* Institutionalizing the policy that “hotspot” reception centers on islands off Greece and Italy are transit zones and thus not EU territory.
* Revising asylum procedures to fast-track deportations of people who have traveled via a “safe third country” or if they are from a country with low asylum recognition rates.
* Creating a new quota system for relocating asylum seekers from front-line states to other EU states.
Criticisms and Controversies
Critics argue that the pact will institutionalize inequality, instrumentalize migration crises, and ignore the actual holes in migration governance. They point out that the reforms focus on securitizing borders and making it easier to deport people, with little protection for migrants and asylum seekers.
Human rights groups criticize the fast-track deportations and the undermining of the right of appeal. They also argue that the commodification of refugees, by putting a price tag on individual lives, undermines solidarity.
Conclusion
The need for EU migration reform is clear, but the Pact on Migration and Asylum has drawn both praise and criticism. Whether the pact will effectively prevent future migration crises or exacerbate existing problems remains to be seen.
