EU Council and Parliament agree on landmark pact on immigration and asylum

The Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached an agreement on the new Pact on Immigration and Asylum, as announced by the Vice-President of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, speaking to K.

Tuesday evening had been preceded by overnight consultations between the negotiators of the EU Council and the European Parliament.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Schinas wrote that "all the pieces are falling into place. We have progress on the five main pillars of the Pact on Immigration and Asylum."

"It has been a long road to get here. But we have made it. Europe is finally delivering on migration," he added.

In an interview last week, the second part of which was published on Monday, Schinas said he was optimistic that the new Pact on Immigration and Asylum would be agreed upon very soon, towards the end of this year or early next year, as few issues are outstanding and, over Hungary's objections, as there is the necessary majority in the Council, particularly due to the Meloni stance and the change of government in Poland.

@eu2023es delivers @EUCouncil and @Europarl_EN reach breakthrough in the reform to improve the EU migration and asylum system.

A political agreement has been reached on the five files of the EU new Pact on Migration and Asylum.#EU2023ES pic.twitter.com/Fr70DGFZzM

— Presidencia española del Consejo de la UE (@eu2023es) December 20, 2023

The five EU laws on which the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council and the European Parliament have reached a political agreement concern all stages of asylum and migration management, from the control of irregular arrivals, the collection of biometric data, the procedures for lodging and processing asylum applications, the rules for determining which member state is responsible for processing applications, cooperation and solidarity between member states and how to handle crisis situations, including in the area of asylum and migration.