Today the European Parliament and the EU Council reached an agreement to reform the EU's migration and asylum laws. After a series of difficult negotiations that have spanned several hours, co-legislators have worked through the night to reach common ground across five pieces of legislation that make up the new Pact on Migration and Asylum first presented by the Commission in 2020. The Pact includes a new Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, a new Screening Regulation, a new Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation, revised rules under the Asylum Procedures Regulation, and a revised Eurodac Regulation.
The S&D Group led the negotiations on behalf of the European Parliament on the crisis regulation and on the screening regulation. Juan Fernando López Aguilar, MEP, negotiated new rules, procedures and mechanisms to be triggered in crisis situations and Birgit Sippel, MEP, led negotiations on new rules to ensure everyone arriving in the EU seeking protection will undergo identity, security, health, and vulnerability checks. The S&D shadow negotiators were Pietro Bartolo, MEP, for the Asylum Migration Management Regulation, Sylvie Guillaume, MEP, for the Asylum Procedures Regulation, and Isabel Santos, MEP, for the Eurodac Regulation.
Iratxe García, S&D Group President, said:
"For several years, we have called for a more reliable and more European migration and asylum system that stands by our values of international protection, upholds the right to asylum and that is based on solidarity between member states. Everyone agrees that the status quo is unsustainable. Thanks to a window of opportunity opened under the Spanish Presidency and a dedicated team of S&D negotiators, today’s breakthrough signals that the EU is capable of reaching workable and common solutions on migration and asylum. That in itself is a big step in the right direction.
"We now have the basis for a system of mandatory solidarity for member states to share responsibility for people coming to the EU seeking protection. When this is signed into EU law, our collective responsibility is then to make sure that member states hold true to their solidarity commitments made under this new system. As well as solidarity between member states, we are also more committed than ever to show solidarity with those in need of international protection. With the new Pact we are able to protect the human dignity of people coming to Europe in despair, to respect their rights and to respect international law.”
Gaby Bischoff, S&D Vice President for Migration, said:
"As a co-legislator, you have an important responsibility to stay around the negotiating table and reach an agreement through compromise. Today, our focus was to deliver long-term reforms that work in practice and that share the responsibility that frontline member states shoulder. We felt a particularly strong sense of responsibility to reach an agreement before the end of the current Parliament mandate. In the EU, we share a common external border and we share a responsibility to agree on a common European asylum system.
"The agreement was years in the making and as result there has been a lot of pressure surrounding these negotiations in recent weeks. It was hard work and took a lot of determination of the negotiators from both the Parliament and the Spanish Presidency. Even more hard work and determination will be needed to implement the new rules on the ground and to make sure that fundamental rights, including the right to asylum, are fully respected.”
