EU states have confirmed agreement on the final form of the migration package. The Czech Republic abstained, two countries were against

Representatives of the member states of the European Union confirmed the agreement on the final form of the migration package in Brussels on Wednesday. According to journalists, the Czechs abstained, while Hungary and Poland were against. The approved position of the bloc states is final, the new migration and asylum rules will only be formally approved by the Union ministers, specifically at the meeting of finance ministers next week on Tuesday. The European Parliament supported the package in a plenary session at the beginning of April.

Among other things, the series of standards envisages more effective checks on migrants and the faster return of unsuccessful asylum seekers to their countries of origin. It also introduces the principle that those countries of the Union that are overloaded with migration pressure will be helped by others in solidarity, either by taking over part of the migrants from them, or by supporting them financially or materially.

In the European Parliament, the vote on the package, which consists of ten legislative proposals, was a drama until the last moment. Support for all ten regulations was not at all certain, and individual factions counted every vote.

At Wednesday’s meeting of the so-called Coreper II, i.e. the ambassadors of the EU member states, the representatives of the countries dealt with the preparation of the ministerial meeting for next week. The positions of the individual countries also showed what the positions of the ministers will be during the formal approval next week. Therefore, it is not expected that the package will subsequently fail. Hungary and Poland failed to convince other states to form a blocking minority together. Slovakia rejected two parts of the pact, and abstained from the rest.

The negotiators of the European Parliament, the Spanish Presidency as a representative of the member countries of the bloc and the European Commission agreed on the final form of the migration and asylum pact last December. The Czech Republic, which had reservations about this compromise, abstained on February 8, when the EU ambassadors confirmed the agreement in Brussels. The Czech government then came to the conclusion that the final form of the Pact on Migration and Asylum is worse for the Czech Republic than the one in which the Czech Republic participated during its presidency. The Czech Ministry of the Interior stated that the reform steps are less ambitious than the Czech Republic expected, the administrative burden is increasing and the possibility of effectively preventing illegal migration already at the external border of the European Union is decreasing.

The Czech Republic reiterated its reservations in a statement prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, which Prague already presented at the February meeting. In the document, the Czech Republic justifies its vote and mentions that the compromise form from the trialogue is not entirely according to the ideas of the Czech government.