Patryk Jaki: EP's amendments to migration pact will make negotiations with Council very difficult

“The European Parliament’s amendments to the migration pact will make it much harder for Member States to effectively fight illegal migration to the EU”

— said ECR Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Coordinator Patryk Jaki. The Conservative ECR Group had considered the Commission’s initial text a good working basis. However, “what the Parliament has proposed are not solutions. This is never-never land”, said Jaki.

The European Conservatives and Reformists Group had called for a vote in Parliament on the mandates of each of the five files in question with the Council in order to highlight the need for a more realistic approach for the negotiations ahead.

Jaki said:

„Much more respect should have been shown for the rules of the Treaty and the competences of the Member States and, secondly, our primary task is to ensure the security of our citizens: Europeans”.

With the proposed changes, the Parliament wants to give the Commission even more decision-making power than the Commission had proposed and wants to leave it up to the Commission to decide when to use the emergency mechanism (force majeur), leaving Member States out in the cold. The European Parliament also wants to focus almost exclusively on the resettlement of migrants, removing the sponsorship of return as an expression of solidarity. It has widened the scope of various assessments (e.g. health, vulnerability), while reducing restrictive measures and making it harder to remove people who have no prospect of remaining. According to the European Parliament, the possibility for Member States to attach conditions to the residence status should be limited. The European Parliament also wants to remove almost all integration conditions for family reunification.

Furthermore, the ECR Group believes that more asylum applications must be made from outside EU Member State borders. Unfortunately, the changed text only provides for the promotion of these types of partnerships with third countries on a residual basis.

mk, source: ECR