The President of the Government, Pedro Sanchezappeared yesterday before the Congress of Deputies to report on its immigration policy, marked by the massive and irregular arrivals recorded mainly in the Canary Islands. The leader of the opposition, Alberto Nuñez Feijóoasked him to adopt a more punitive and restrictive line, putting on the table the example of Italy Giorgia Meloniand that “he is not taking a tour of Africa to promote Spain as a destination.”
Sánchez, for his part, recalled the difficulties of the compatriots who emigrated to America in the forties and suggested that ““Spain must choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed and poor country.”
The president announced his road map from Madrid and Brussels. In Madrid he proposed a reform of the immigration regulations “to streamline the processes of migrants residing in Spain, eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic procedures, organizing root figures and creating new figures around employment and family networks. In Brussels, he is committed to solidarity between countries for the distribution of people who have arrived illegally and for the progress of the Migration and Asylum Pact, the entry into force of which is dated 2026. He wants this to start in 2025 to defuse the most violent currents which are already thriving in Europe.
The line drawn from Moncloa therefore contrasts with the general change of agenda in the rest of the Union, and not only among countries governed by forces traditionally linked to the radical right.
In Germany, the chancellor Olaf Scholz has just reintroduced controls at all its borders to curb irregular immigration and improve security. In France, the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnierpromised “limit immigration”. Hungary and the Netherlands are calling for an “exception” to avoid having to apply Community rules on asylum. In Austria, the far-right FPÖ party has just won the elections thanks to an anti-immigration speech.
After three and a half years of intense debate, the EU has definitively approved the Pact on Migration and Asylum, which is based on the strengthening of external borders and the tightening of asylum conditions. The new rules will not come into force until 2026, but the majority of community governments already consider them insufficient to deal with migratory pressure and are calling for others to be explored. “innovative solutions”. The most recent is the creation of migrant expulsion centers in third countries.
This idea of non-EU deportation centers was raised precisely by the Hungarian Presidency of the EU and is on the agenda of the meeting of the Interior Ministers of the Twenty-Seven which is being held this Thursday in Luxembourg. European governments are looking for ways to speed up the repatriations of irregular migrants, a policy that has so far failed. According to Eurostat, in 2023, the expulsion of 484,160 irregular immigrants across the EU was ordered, but only 91,465 (18.9% of the total) actually returned.
The reform of return directive This is precisely the only outstanding element of the Pact on Migration and Asylum. The governments of the 27 reached an agreement in 2019, but the European Parliament has not yet defined its position. Today, the majority of Member States want to tighten the directive even further because they believe that there has been a “paradigm shift”. And they are putting pressure on the new Commission to withdraw the proposed text and present a new, stronger version. The future immigration commissioner will be the Austrian Magnus Brunner.
A total of 14 member states (Austria, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Finland, France, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Sweden and Slovakia, as well as three Schengen states: Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) have just signed. a joint letter detailing the changes they wish to make to the Returns Directive.
Among them, the possibility of sanction migrants who do not cooperate with their repatriationas well as greater facilities to expressly expel people who pose a serious threat to the public security of Member States.
Most governments also favor sanctions against countries of origin and transit that refuse to sign repatriation agreements with the EU and do not accept the return of their nationals. And this by using all the levers available to Brussels. On the one hand, make it more difficult to obtain visas for nationals of countries that do not cooperate. Something that has already been done for countries like Gambia or Ethiopia. But also withdraw trade preferences or reduce development aid. This second option has been discussed for many years, but has never been put into practice.
“The systematic conclusion and implementation of readmission agreements with the main countries of origin remains a problem. Using visas as leverage It has been recognized as an important tool that could generate positive change in the behavior of third countries, but its potential could be further expanded. Furthermore, it is necessary to complete the toolbox, notably by using trade as a lever through the new regulation on the generalized system of preferences,” says the document prepared by Hungary for the ministers’ debate.
However, the big novelty proposed by Viktor Orbán’s government is to broaden the definition of return, in order to allow the sending of irregular migrants to another third country other than that of origin or transit, for example in the Balkans. . Budapest maintains that these extra-community expulsion centers would help to increase the effectiveness of expulsions in cases where there is no cooperation from the country of origin and transit and where the returnee himself does not cooperate.
“Although the Council has not yet discussed the specific details and legal implications of such solutions, many delegations have highlighted the value of exploring the concept of return centers in safe third countries,” notes the document. work prepared by Budapest for the meeting of interior ministers. . “One of the main benefits of these return centers would be to reduce the in-call effect and therefore reduce the number of irregular departures and embarkations on dangerous journeys. should ease migration pressure on the EU“, he adds.
Countries like Germany or Netherlands They are ready to explore this idea of Hungary, although they also insist that many clarifications are needed. On the one hand, there are doubts about the willingness of a third country to host an area with these characteristics. Until now, only Albania reached an agreement with the Italian government of Meloni for asylum processing centers. On the other hand, member states want to ensure that this initiative respects international law and human rights.
Among the large EU countries, Spain is the only one to clearly stand out from this type of initiative. The government of Pedro Sánchez defends that the priority must now be the implementation of the Migration and Asylum Pact, the political agreement for which was concluded under the Spanish presidency. In fact, the president defended this Wednesday in Congress bring forward the entry into force of the Pact by one year, until 2025.
No concrete results are yet expected from this Thursday’s meeting of Interior Ministers in Luxembourg. Of course, governments want to take the opportunity to show the way to the new Community Executive to continue strengthening the control of external borders and the EU’s migration policy.
The migration crisis is also on the agenda of the autumn summit of heads of state and government of the 27 which is being held next week in Brussels. “The European Council calls for a determined action at all levels to increase and accelerate returns of the European Union”, we read in the draft conclusions, which could further evolve and become tougher in the coming days.
