Today in Brussels, the representatives of the member states of the European Union confirmed the agreement on the final form of the migration package. According to ČTK, the Czechs abstained, while Hungary and Poland were against. The position of the bloc states approved today 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, there was a vote on package, which consists of ten legislative proposals, drama until the last moment. Support for all ten regulations was not at all certain, and individual factions counted every vote.
The vote on the migration package was a drama until the last moment:
MEPs approved the final migration package. The meeting was interrupted by protesters
At today’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 (EC) 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.
According to Minister of the Interior Víto Rakušan, the Migration Pact is not perfect, but it provides a basis for further measures:
The migration pact provides the basis for further measures, the Austrian said. Babiš talks about betrayal
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.
According to ČTK, the Czech Republic reiterated its reservations in a statement prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, which Prague 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.
Babiš criticizes Fial’s government for inviting migrants to Europe
According to Interior Minister Vít Rakušan (STAN), the resulting form of the EU migration package is more bureaucratic and weakens the mandatory border procedure compared to the original proposal. But it is an important first step towards an effective solution to illegal migration. The Austrian told ČTK on Wednesday in response to the fact that the representatives of the European Union states today confirmed the agreement on the final form of the package. He confirmed that the Czech Republic had delayed.
According to ex-prime minister and chairman of the ANO opposition movement Andrej Babiš, the government of Petr Fiala (ODS) caused the package to take shape, and the Czech Republic should have voted against it. The cabinet betrayed Czech citizens, Babiš told CTK. “The whole thing was caused by Fial’s government and especially by Vít Rakušan during the Czech presidency (in the second half of 2022), when they prepared the whole thing and invited migrants to Europe,” wrote ČTK Babiš. “The fact that they delayed now does not matter at all in the end, they should have been against it as a whole V4,” he said
Tags: states confirmed agreement final form migration package Czech Republic abstained
