The Vice President of the European Commission responsible for Migration, Margaritis Schinas, has urged European governments on Wednesday to unblock the reform of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact that has been under negotiation for two years in order to address the increase in irregular arrivals through routes such as the central Mediterranean or the Balkans, avoid deaths at sea and reduce tension between the partners themselves.
«It’s ironic, we have everything we need at our fingertips but out of reach. It’s like having a parachute and choosing to jump out of the plane without it,» Schinas warned in a debate on the migration situation in the plenary session of the European Parliament being held in Strasbourg (France), just two days before EU interior ministers meet extraordinarily in Brussels.
In this way, the Community Vice-President recalled that it has been two years since he presented together with the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, a proposal to reform the EU’s migration and asylum policy that seeks to establish a balance between solidarity and responsibility of the EU countries.
The pact proposes binding measures, including a mechanism for sharing among partners the reception of refugees that will allow governments that do not want to assume their share to contribute financially, as well as a strengthening of the control of the external border of the EU and a boost to cooperation with countries of origin and transit of irregular routes to curb departures and expedite deportations.
In this context, Schinas warned the capitals that the European Union «does not need to reinvent anything» because it has the necessary instruments to respond with European solutions to the difficulties of the Member States to manage migratory pressure.
While the agreement for the fundamental reform is being sought, Schinas said, the countries must also make «full use» of instruments already on the table, for example the voluntary relocation mechanism that more than a dozen countries – including Spain – supported last June.
This platform was designed with the commitment to relocate thousands of migrants arriving first to frontline countries such as Italy or Malta to other countries of the bloc but, in practice, it has barely served for the relocation of a hundred people.
However, the European Commission sees in this instrument one of the key tools to deal with immediate crises such as the situation in the central Mediterranean, where NGO vessels perform rescue tasks rescuing migrants at sea but then face the refusal of countries such as Italy to allow them to disembark despite being the nearest safe port.
After the latest standoff between Rome and Paris, when the government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni refused to allow the NGO ship SOS Mediterranée with more than 200 rescued migrants to arrive in port and forced them to be redirected to the Gallic coast, the government of Emmanuel Macron broke with the commitment to receive about 3,000 people in the framework of the European voluntary platform.
ACTION PLAN Meanwhile, Schinas and Johansson will bring this Friday to the extraordinary meeting of European ministers an action plan with about twenty measures, including reactivating the voluntary relocation platform that, in the eyes of Brussels, can serve as a «bridge» to the permanent mechanism that exists within the framework of the Pact on Migration and Asylum.
Alongside voluntary sharing, the Brussels plan rests on two other pillars: improving coordination in rescue between Member States and with third parties such as NGOs or European agencies, and relaunching cooperation with third countries and international organizations to strengthen border control at migrant departure points and speed up returns.
At this point, the Community Executive draws attention to the fact that most of the people arriving by the central Mediterranean route come from Egypt, Tunisia and Bangladesh, although they arrive from Libya, so that the EU considers them economic migrants without the right to international protection.
Therefore, Brussels advocates giving more means to the Libyan and Tunisian authorities to curb departures and fight against mafias and seek agreements with the countries of origin to ensure quick and safe deportations of their nationals.
«History does not repeat itself often, we must learn from the lessons of the past,» Schinas has asked recalling the migration crisis of 2015 and pointing to the urgency of agreeing on solutions at the ministerial meeting, without forgetting the «need» to have «binding decisions in the long term.»
«Emergency measures and discussions are useful but not enough,» Schinas insisted, before calling for «permanent solutions» and stressing that the EU has them «at its fingertips.» «We can do it and we must do it,» he reiterated.