The European Council agreed on a reformed asylum and migration policy on Wednesday, which should allow Member States to better address migration crises by requesting support from other EU countries, among other things.
These "solidarity contributions" could include – but are not limited to – the relocation and processing of asylum seekers, as well as financial contributions, and will require authorisation from the EU Council.
The agreement was delayed from last week after Italy and Germany disagreed over a specific clause in the mandate that protects the role of NGOs operating in the Mediterranean, which rescue migrants and then bring them to coastal EU Member States.
In recent weeks, Italy has been struggling with a migration crisis that saw the arrival of record numbers of asylum seekers, briefly outnumbering the resident population on the Italian island of Lampedusa. The current Italian government is convinced that the presence of NGOs in the Mediterranean encourages even more boat arrivals.
Germany ultimately agreed to the removal of the paragraph in question, but the victory is seen as nothing more than symbolic for Italy, since the reform maintains that the first country of entry for asylum seekers is still responsible for hosting and processing them.
This regulation is part of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum proposed by the European Commission in September 2020 to reform EU migration and asylum rules. It will provide the foundations for further negotiations between the Council and the Parliament before it can be passed into law – hopefully before the next European elections in June 2024.
