EU countries agree to tighten reception and repatriation; set migrant solidarity contributions

Brussels – The European Union is progressing with the Migration and Asylum Pact and new rules to tighten the net for the reception and return of migrants. Yesterday (8 December), the interior ministers of the 27 approved the reform of the safe third country concept, the first EU safe countries of origin list, and new return procedures, including the controversial possibility of establishing hubs outside the EU. At the same time, they decided on the solidarity pool with the countries of first arrival for 2026: Italy, Spain, Greece, and Cyprus are to be guaranteed 21,000 relocations or 420 million euros in contributions.

The regulation that changes the safe third country concept will expand the circumstances in which member states can reject an asylum application considered inadmissible. In line with the European Commission’s proposal, the ministers’ position will allow member states to conclude bilateral agreements with third countries deemed safe for conducting asylum procedures outside of Europe. In essence, a confirmation of the validity of the Italian government’s original project in Albania. 

The change, described by Brussels as “targeted,” will have enormous repercussions. Member states will now be able to reject asylum applications deemed inadmissible. This means they can do so without examining the merits if they believe applicants could have sought and gained protection in a non-EU country considered safe for them. But the blows to the current asylum system, which “creates unhealthy incentive structures and a strong pull factor,” do not end here. The requirement for a connection between the asylum seeker and the third country will no longer be compulsory. This opens the possibility of transferring migrants to any third country,  even thousands of kilometres away, so long as asylum can be granted there by agreement. Additionally, asylum seekers who object to such decisions will no longer have an automatic right to remain in the EU during appeals.

 The second building block is the list of Secure countries of origin, which will streamline rejections and returns in the asylum procedure. The list, which will remain open to additions or cuts, for now includes Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco, and Tunisia. Member states will apply an accelerated procedure to applicants from these countries and may implement it at borders or in transit zones. EU candidate countries will also automatically be designated as safe, unless there is a conflict or restrictive measures affecting fundamental rights and freedoms have been taken (Ukraine in the first case, Georgia in the second).

Member States will be able to have their own national lists, larger than the EU ones, as is already the case in Italy, for instance, following the principle that if the asylum applications of nationals from a given country are accepted in less than 20 percent of cases, then their applications may fall under the accelerated procedures.

To complete the system, there is the revision of the return rules, which will definitively open the way to return hubs, detention centres in third countries for irregular migrants waiting to be actually repatriated. In fact, the Council insists that these centres “can act both as transit centres to countries of final return and as final destinations.” The boundaries remain deliberately vague; everything is delegated to bilateral agreements with the countries that agree to host the return hubs: the procedures for repatriation, the conditions of stay for migrants, and the consequences in the event of non-compliance with the human rights standards set out in these agreements.

On the issue of mutual recognition of return decisions, the compromise reached by the ministers is that it should not be mandatory, at least initially. The fear of the countries involved in secondary movements is that it will result in a costly own goal, because they may have to repatriate citizens who have been allowed to flee, more or less consciously, from the countries of first arrival. 

The mistrust between the border countries and those of continental Europe was even more evident in negotiations on the solidarity mechanism, the cornerstone of the Migration and Asylum Pact. The ministers of the 27 agreed that in 2026, the countries under migration pressure – Italy, Spain, Greece, and Cyprus – will benefit from 21,000 relocations, or 420 million euros in financial contributions, or other solidarity initiatives. It is up to each Member State to decide which solidarity measure to adopt, including the option to combine different measures.

Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Poland, identified by the Commission as countries under significant migratory pressure, insisted that their solidarity contributions be reduced, in whole or in part, for the first year. The four countries of first arrival were warned by almost everyone: there is no solidarity without responsibility. In other words, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Cyprus must stop letting the “Dublin cases” depart.

 If it is the Council that, after yesterday’s political agreement, will have to formally adopt the implementation decision on the solidarity mechanism, on the three proposals on safe countries of origin, safe third countries, and repatriations, we still have to wait for the European Parliament. The files have already passed through the parliamentary committees, where the alliance between the People’s Party and extreme-right groups effectively confirmed the tightening proposed by the Commission. The green light is expected during the last plenary session of the year, in mid-December.