The implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum (12 June), the progress achieved by Member States during the two-year preparatory period, and the need to maintain a balance between responsibility and solidarity were discussed on Monday in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) in Brussels.
On behalf of the Cypriot Presidency of the Council, the Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection, Nicholas Ioannides, described the launch of the Pact as a significant milestone for European migration policy, stressing that the new framework aims to replace fragmented approaches of the past with a coherent system of common rules, procedures, and obligations.
In his address, stated that the coming week marks a particularly important moment for the European Union, as after years of negotiations and two years of intensive preparation, the Pact on Migration and Asylum will enter into application.
He added that the entry into force of the Pact is not merely the activation of a legislative package, but the culmination of a long-standing effort to address the shortcomings revealed by the 2015 migration crisis and to move from a fragmented system to a more integrated European framework.
The Deputy Minister noted that for many years migration management in Europe was based mainly on ad hoc solutions, which led to gaps, structural weaknesses, and unequal distribution of responsibilities among Member States. He observed that the Pact seeks to change this situation, as for the first time all Member States are required to operate within a unified system based on common rules and procedures, as well as shared responsibilities.
He said that the implementation of the Pact was one of the key priorities of the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the EU. Throughout the Presidency, he said, there had been close cooperation with the Commission, relevant EU agencies, and Member States to coordinate the necessary preparations.
In this context, he underlined that Cyprus will host a ministerial conference next week, on the day the Pact becomes fully operational, in order to highlight the political significance of the new framework.
Referring to the broader framework of EU migration policy, he underlined that the Pact is not limited to the management of irregular migration, but operates alongside initiatives on legal migration pathways, such as the EU Talent Pool, the EU Resettlement Framework, and the EU Visa Strategy.
He stressed that the relationship between legal and irregular migration is complex and cannot be interpreted as a simple cause and effect relationship. Nevertheless, he added, the ability of Member States to develop effective legal migration schemes is often linked to the overall effectiveness of their migration management systems and their capacity to manage migration flows.
The Deputy Minister stated that strengthening migration governance, contributing to the reduction of irregular arrivals and preventing abuse of the system, can create the conditions for better-organised and more effectively managed legal migration pathways.
The Pact, he said, seeks to address this weakness through a more predictable and structured system of solidarity among member states, stressing that solidarity must operate in practice in a fair, credible, and tangible manner.
At the same time, he emphasised that despite the safeguards and mechanisms provided by the new framework, no common system can succeed in the long term unless all Member States assume their fair share of collective responsibility.
In conclusion, the Deputy Minister underlined that the entry into application of the Pact is not the end but the beginning of a new phase. The new framework, he said, will ultimately be judged by its results in practice rather than by its legislative content alone.