After a day of frenzied negotiations, the Council of the European Union has reached a historic agreement to reform asylum and admission rules in the bloc. Italy came determined to find a more favorable compromise to our demands, and eventually succeeded in obtaining substantial concessions. The most important point that Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi insisted on most was that no matter what immigrants are considered to be a safe country, they can also be sent back to a transit country, and that he also gives governments a certain margin of appreciation. whether that country is dark or not. This means that an African migrant entering Italy via Tunisia can be sent back there and not to their home country (provided Tunisia agrees).
It was later confirmed that countries that would not accept the deportations would have to pay 20,000 euros for each unaccepted migrant, but again under pressure from the Italian government, it was decided that this money would no longer go directly to the responsible country. Not to the person to be relocated, but to a specially created EU fund for which there are no details yet about its operation. Italy always wants it to be used to support agreements and pacts with third countries so that the flow is stopped before it reaches Europe. “We refused any possible monetary compensation because they did not believe the honor of our country could implement such solutions,” Piantedosi said at the end of the council meeting. The government of Giorgia Meloni thus avoids the embarrassment of one day having to ask for money from two of its allies, Mateusz Morawiecki’s Poland and Viktor Orban’s Hungary, who have opposed the idea ‘from the start’. The mechanism is “unacceptable to us,” said Bartosz Grodecki, Poland’s deputy interior minister, equating the financial contribution to a “penalty” for every unwanted immigrant.
As explained, at the Interior Council in Luxembourg, the Swedish presidency decided to force its hand and go to a vote by qualified majority, and in the end only Warsaw and Budapest voted against, with four governments abstaining: Slovakia, Lithuania, Malta and Bulgaria. The text is now in trial with the Parliament. It will have to be discussed and other changes will be possible there, but most of it has been decided and the road is now completely downhill. But we worked hard all day to get that confirmation, and in the afternoon everything looked like it could blow up. But that didn’t happen. The structure of the New Asylum and Migration Pact based on “compulsory but flexible solidarity” will survive. First of all, this means that every year 30,000 asylum seekers will be relocated from the state they entered to another state on the block. If the latter is unwilling to accept them, they can choose to pay an economic contribution of exactly 20,000 euros per person or to provide logistical support, for example by providing helicopters or drones, equipment for border surveillance. uniforms or organizing repatriations. The calculation of how many immigrants will be resettled from which country to which country will be made by the Commission.
But there is not only good news for our country. Italy and other first-entry States will be required to be much more rigorous in welcoming all people entering Europe irregularly and identifying all people who must occur within 24 hours of their entry, so as not to allow them to go to other countries. Governments will then be required to apply an expedited review procedure at border centers for asylum applications that have the statistically lowest chance of obtaining refugee status for immigrants from countries with an asylum application rate below 20%. The aim is to facilitate return to countries of origin or transit. Germany has been fighting all day against repatriations to transit countries, fearing that agreements could be reached, such as those that Britain made with Rwanda, in which London entrusted some of the costs of admission in exchange for money. But this is what Europe (and therefore Berlin) has done with Turkey, which has been hosting Syrian refugees on our behalf for years.
For example, if Italy could reach such an agreement with a country like Turkey, it could do the same thing. “It will be up to Member States to apply the concept of a ‘safe third country’ to which a migrant can possibly be transferred, and to determine whether there is a link between the applicant and the third country,” said the Swedish Minister of Immigration. , Maria Malmer Stenergard. However, both the definition of the safe state and the existence of the bond between the asylum seeker and the nation (another necessary condition) will be created by the countries, thus opening up a room for maneuver. “The text contains some examples of what the link between immigration and transit country is: whether the person has lived in the country or has family members. But there may be other possibilities,” said Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
Finally, it has been found that the responsibility to deal with asylum applications rests with the State of first destination for a period of two years, in this case only one year, except for one person rescued at sea. After this de facto period, the country will no longer be responsible for his fate and any other state to which the immigrant may have moved will not have the right to send him back.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
