Home European Union Why the EU Migration Pact Won’t Stop Europe’s Asylum Crisis

Why the EU Migration Pact Won’t Stop Europe’s Asylum Crisis

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By Arnout Jaspers, a Dutch physicist and science journalist

Tomorrow, the EU Migration Pact enters into force – the new asylum and migration system which, according to the ‘left’, renders the supposedly “far-right” tightening of asylum legislation unnecessary. Just sit back and wait; Brussels has already sorted it out. That is the narrative in politics and much of the Dutch media.

The reality is that this will change nothing regarding the influx of around 900 asylum seekers per week in the Netherlands, and not a single additional rejected asylum seeker will be deported. That Migration Pact was, in fact, adopted two years ago, and should have been gradually implemented since then, including by the Netherlands. June 2026 is therefore not the starting point, but the end point of the Migration Pact’s implementation. Has anyone noticed any difference yet?

On Wynia’s Week, Calvin Schukkink recently explained what the Migration Pact will mean for the Dutch asylum crisis. Spoiler: probably next to nothing.

Unnecessarily complicated

Such a Pact comprises countless pages of legal jargon, but I thought: perhaps things would be a bit more concrete in the Implementation Plan for the Pact on Migration and Asylum. That is, in other words, the practical guide on how the Pact is to be implemented. Let me just say straight away that the EU bureaucrats manage to make everything unnecessarily complicated in that Implementation Plan too.

This starts from the very moment the asylum seeker sets foot on EU soil:

“The Asylum Procedure Regulation streamlines the access to the asylum procedure and harmonises the timelines thereby providing for shorter and more efficient procedures. For example, the Regulation establishes clear deadlines for the three steps of the asylum procedure, i.e., the applicant expressing the wish to receive international protection (‘the making’) and the consequent receiving by the Member State authorities and registering the application (‘the registering’) and the applicant lodging the application (‘the lodging’).”

Such a three-stage streamlining process is bound to drastically reduce waiting lists! Moreover, whilst the Migration Pact does set out all manner of deadlines for ‘making’, ‘registering’ and ‘submitting’, as well as for the accelerated and full asylum procedures, it says nothing about what happens if those deadlines are exceeded. 

Member states already have deadlines that are frequently and systematically missed, yet a bizarre notion is circulating in political and media circles that this will no longer happen once the Migration Pact comes into force. How so? Because, according to the Migration Pact, member states must make ‘sufficient resources and manpower’ available to meet those deadlines. Well, if it were that easy, the Dutch government could also build ten new cities for all those asylum seekers.

No sanctions 

The Plan is full of such wishful thinking: the bureaucrats announce that from now on A, B and C must be done by the respective deadlines DA, DB and DC, and so the Member States will do just that. Brussels has spoken, the matter is settled.

It would be impossible to comb through all ten Building Blocks of that Plan for such pipe dreams, but here is one more example: according to the new Reception Conditions Directive, Member States may make the provision of material reception for an asylum seeker (accommodation, care, living expenses and the like) conditional on that asylum seeker remaining at a designated reception centre, usually in the country where he or she entered.

But what penalty is there if the asylum seeker nevertheless travels on to another EU Member State? According to this Directive, they are still entitled to ‘basic care’ (provide for basic needs only) in that other Member State. There is no question of asylum seekers who flout the rules simply losing their right to asylum and being immediately deported, which any self-respecting country would do.

Many obligations for Member States, few for asylum seekers

The whole soft, mushy mess of rules in the Migration Pact gives off that same whiff of appeasement and appeasement. It is full of obligations that Member States must fulfil, in terms of reception, care, education, free legal aid, independent monitoring by NGOs and appeal options following every decision. However, there are extremely few obligations for the recipient of all this generosity: the asylum seeker who enters uninvited and says: ‘Please give me a European passport.’

And what do you make of this bureaucratic gem:

“While during the screening and the border procedure, persons are not authorised to enter the EU territory, they have the right to remain.”

What is also striking is the saint-like status that continues to be attributed to unaccompanied minors. Whereas adults are still subject to certain restrictions on being allowed to enter the asylum procedure, these are immediately thrown out the window as soon as someone comes forward claiming to be under 18 (which is often a lie).

A fraudulent route to asylum for the whole family

Asylum is intended for people who are persecuted by their own government on the grounds of political opinion, sexual orientation, religion or ethnicity.

How credible is it that a 16- or 17-year-old would have to flee for one of those reasons, leaving behind their entire family who are apparently not in the same government’s sights? Anyone under the age of 18 who arrives alone at an EU external border is, almost by definition, abusing the right to asylum.

And once the minor has been recognised, their parents and all siblings are also entitled to ‘status’, as it is called, without having to prove that they too are being persecuted.

Nevertheless, the Migration Pact continues to generously facilitate this fraudulent route to asylum for the whole family. The young asylum seeker must be assigned a representative immediately, must under no circumstances be placed in immigration detention, and the Plan describes DNA tests to prove kinship as ‘cumbersome’, so let’s just skip that too to speed up family reunification.

Streamlined procedures actually attract even more asylum seekers

Another bizarre idea regarding the Migration Pact: that fewer asylum seekers would come to Europe after its introduction. Even if the Pact were to lead to shorter and more streamlined procedures, this would have a magnetising rather than a deterrent effect unless the criteria for recognition as ‘persecuted’ are tightened. I have found nothing in this Plan regarding the latter.

Admittedly, one of the ten Building Blocks, No. 5, concerns the subject of ‘return’. Rejected asylum seekers must return to their country of origin or a third country outside the EU. In theory, this is already the case, and Building Block 5 contains no new measures whatsoever to actually deport rejected asylum seekers. Here too, the motto is ‘kicking the can down the road’, with voluntary return as a priority and extreme reluctance to detain rejected asylum seekers who refuse to cooperate with their departure.

We cannot avoid the conclusion that, at European level too – just as in the Netherlands – the administrative elite still lives in a fantasy world in which the asylum crisis is not primarily an influx problem, but a reception and distribution problem. The only concrete element in that Migration Pact is, in fact, the redistribution of 30,000 asylum seekers per year across the Member States, which can buy their way out of this with 20,000 euros per asylum seeker – a pittance compared to the actual costs of reception. Enough has already been written about this elsewhere.

The illusion of a solution

The effective and rapid deportation of rejected asylum seekers, one of the few factors that would truly act as a deterrent, is dismissed in the Plan with a sort of footnote:

“Third, continued work on the external dimension of migration remains crucial. Whilst actions in this area are not tied to legal obligations, it will be essential for the Union to continue to further intensify work with partner countries, notably in three key areas: the fight against migrant smuggling, effective returns, readmission and reintegration as well as legal pathways (for migration, ed.).”

That is all the EU Migration Pact and Implementation Plan have to offer for ‘the external dimension of migration’ (meaning: the unchecked influx of asylum seekers and irregular migrants). The Pact and Plan thus do exactly what the asylum industry wants: create the illusion that a structural, comprehensive solution is on the way meaning that, in essence, nothing will change for years to come.

 

 

Originally published in Dutch on Wynia’s Week

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