While the migration issue will animate the summit of European Heads of State and Government on October 17 and 18, the Ministers of the Interior of the Twenty-seven met on Thursday, October 10 in Luxembourg to debate the issue that is launching the European political scene from the beginning. of the school year. After the reestablishment of German border controls in mid-September, statements in favor of a new European adjustment of measures against irregular immigration have multiplied.
“We are in the process of converging even more between all Member States so that we can respond to the wishes of our people who want to be protected from migration crises”Bruno Retailleau, the conservative right-wing French Interior Minister, said Thursday. More and more Member States are calling for the outsourcing of asylum applications to third countries, or even the creation of centers for returns outside Europe. None, however, is willing to abandon the pact on migration and asylum, adopted in May after five years of negotiations to harmonize the procedures for filtering, examining and training asylum seekers at the borders, as well as their return if they do not. are. eligible for asylum.
The Netherlands and Hungary have requested an exemption not to apply this pact, in case of renegotiation of the European Union treaties. “But as long as there are no changes in the treaty, we will apply it”Sandor Pinter, Hungarian Minister of the Interior, assured on Thursday, while his Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, continues to declare that he will never apply it. In fact, this pact remains ” priority ” European, confides a diplomat in Brussels.
“Studies will be done”
While in theory it should come into force in June 2026, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez would like to speed up its implementation. The latter proposed on Wednesday in a speech in Madrid that the provisions of the pact “they will begin to be implemented in the summer of 2025 and not in the summer of 2026.”
The two countries do not follow the same reasoning. After two attacks by refugees (in May in Mannheim and in August in Solingen) and several electoral defeats, Olaf Scholz decided to pursue a much more restrictive immigration policy. Pedro Sánchez, although the author of a speech on Wednesday that was very favorable to immigration, would like to find a quick European solution to the increase in irregular arrivals to the Canary Islands. Since the beginning of the year, more than 30,000 people have sailed from the Mauritanian and Senegalese coasts to the Atlantic archipelago.
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