With the implementation of the agreement between Italy and Albania on the transfer of refugees from EU territory, a European Council summit marked by the immigration. Most countries are advocating a more restrictive policy, with popular Europeans setting the tone.
In this sense, the European People’s Group (EPP) considers that it is necessary “to explore options for agreement with third countries” and assumes that “the EU must be ready to apply other policies” regarding visas and to “draw conclusions, now that we are entering the implementation phase of the agreement between Italy and the ‘Albania’.
This is what the EPP expresses in a declaration prior to the European Council which will be held between Thursday and Friday. The Spanish People’s Party, a member of this political family, is the conservative party that obtained the best results in the last European elections and one of those that brings the most MEPs to the group after Germany.
The training of Alberto Nuñez Feijóo thus joins the postulates of the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyenwho expressed in a letter that the agreement between Italy and Albania responds to “innovative thinking” and urges other countries to “continue to explore ways forward regarding the idea of developing return centers in outside the EU”.
Popular Europeans also call for tougher policies to return to their country of origin to migrants arriving in Europe, although it ultimately depends on those countries of origin.
In addition, they call for other measures such as strengthening controls at the EU’s external borders or triple Frontex staffthe European agency in charge of this maritime and land border surveillance.
The EPP calls for strengthening the Schengen area, with border controls as the German social democratic government has already done, and speaks of “temporary infrastructure”. What could be translated by walls and fences at the borders.
“We cannot allow Russia and Belarus to use our values, notably the right to asylum, to undermine our democracies,” they justify.
Application of the migration pact
European conservatives are demanding that the new migration pact, approved by the European Council in May this year and due to come into force in June 2026, be implemented, with more restrictive policies.
Furthermore, they call for a new Mediterranean pact to “fight irregular immigration and human trafficking”, as well as “strengthen the return policy» with agreements with “safe third countries”.
“Irregular immigration is one of the main challenges facing Europe today. More than 350,000 people requested protection when they entered the EU irregularly in the first 11 months of this year,” says the EPP.
To do this, they boast of agreements with Tunisia to contain migrants in this country and of another more recent one signed with Lebanon.
The EU inaugurated this policy with a migration pact with Turkey in 2016, thanks to which it managed to stop arrivals via this route, but which was harshly criticized by the authorities. systematic violations of human rights in this country.
