Reception
Support
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Pact was a "huge achievement for Europe", and that it would deliver a "European solution" to migration by securing borders and increasing efficiency in processing asylum applications. President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola of Malta said "We have delivered a robust legislative framework on how to deal with migration and asylum in the EU". [4] [19]
Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz hailed the deal as a "historic, indispensable" step that "limits irregular migration and finally relieves the burden on the countries that are particularly badly affected". [4] Migration Minister of Greece Dimitris Kairidis called the Pact a "major breakthrough". [19] The Pact was supported by the International Organization for Migration. [20]
On 9 October 2024, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez urged the European Parliament to speed up the implementation of The Pact to alleviate the migration crisis in the Canary Islands. [21]
Criticism
The Pact has been criticized by some right-wing politicians for not going far enough to prevent illegal immigration, such as missing provisions relating to migrant returns, [22] [23] as well as for undermining national sovereignty. [24] Poland and Hungary opposed the Pact due to the obligations of hosting migrants, [13] with Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk stating "we will protect Poland against the relocation mechanism" and Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán saying "Secure borders are no more, Hungary will never give in to the mass migration frenzy". [4]
Left-wing critics of the Pact have said that it puts the human rights of asylum seekers at risk. [10] [17] A group of human rights organizations including Oxfam, Caritas, Amnesty International, and Save the Children have criticised the deal in an open letter stating that it would create a "cruel system". [25] More than 200 academics belonging to 66 predominantly European universities have called the Pact "inhumane" and demanded that the European Parliament and the Council to reconsider how they view the Pact. [26] [27]
In 2024 researchers like Gerald Knaus concluded, that the reform is unlikely to lead to a reduction in illegal immigration to the EU. Statutory exceptions reduce the number of people admissible in detention centers or qualifying for deportation. Only people who made false claims concerning their identity, those who pose a threat to national security and, if ascertainable at all, those who originate from countries with an asylum protection quota of under 20 percent will be allowed to be sent to detention centers. Additionally the number of asylum claims which will be allowed to be assessed in detention centers is limited at 120,000 cases per year, while actual arrival numbers in the EU were around one million every year in the past years. Every asylum seeker will still have the Right to counsel. German politicians had reduced the option of deporting people to countries of transit by putting the exception into the EU Migration Pact, that these asylum seekers need to have a verifiable connection to those countries, making it substantially more difficult to send anybody back. Heiko Rehmann wrote, as long as everybody has the right to request asylum in Europe and each claim has to be individually assessed, the problems will remain. Only a reform of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees would be able to change that. [28]