EU Migration Pact. Context, criticism and reforms proposals for a new balance in the EU

Executive summary

• The large-scale influx of refugees into European Union countries has not changed significantly compared to the ‘crisis’ year of 2015. In 2024, approximately 1 million ap-plications for international protection were submitted in the EU, compared with 1.3 million in 2015.

• The number of people residing illegally in the EU remains substantial. At the end of 2024, it exceeded 900,000 in-dividuals.

• From a broad perspective, the current situation in Europe points to a deep imbalance between ‘individual rights’ and ‘the rights of nations’, with asylum policy serving as one of the key examples of this imbalance.

• The law and its interpretation by national courts and tri-bunals (CJEU, ECHR) operate within the paradigm of pro-tecting individual rights, while the perspective of political communities – their identity and cultural security – is completely ignored. Tribunal rulings increasingly indicate a growing divergence between abstract, increasingly ideologized legal norms and the complex political and social reality.

• It is unlikely that tribunals will be able, on their own, to find a balance and reduce the scope of dynamic legal in-terpretation. We know the legal acts covered by the Pact, but their interpretation remains uncertain. Considering the current trajectory of case law, even the most restrictive provisions limiting the scope of irregular migration may prove to be blunt instruments.

• The frameworks of primary and secondary law need to be clarified to minimise the risk of dynamic legal interpretation, which – by disregarding the category of the common good – rules in favour of migrants with irregular legal status. A lack of decision in this matter may lead to a comprehensive undermining of the achievements of the Geneva Convention1 and the European Convention on Human Rights, as is currently observed in the United Kingdom. Tribunals bear no political responsibility – that falls to politicians. Tribunals incur no costs – these are borne by societies. Economic costs are only one element; there are also costs related to the lack of social cohesion, threats to freedom, reduced sense of security, long-term impacts on national identity, and the social polarisation observed in almost all Western countries. Decisions that fail to take these straightforward facts into account cannot be considered moral, even if they are cloaked under the guise of protecting ‘European values’. One of the key European values is the agency of political communities, yet this continues to be completely ignored in existing rulings.

• The Pact does not create a coherent system for managing migration. Alongside valuable tools such as the concept of safe countries, it introduces the so-called solidarity mechanism. This mechanism grants the European Com-mission a wide range of competences and shifts asylum policy to the EU level, thereby significantly reducing the scope of powers held by Member States. By introducing minimum levels of relocation and financial contributions, it creates a long-term risk for Member States of losing control over migration processes (arising, among other things, from family reunification rights and the naturalisation process, as illustrated by Germany’s misguided migration policy in 2015). This mechanism may become a source of growing tension between Western and Central-Eastern European countries, ultimately weakening the entire Union. The relocation mechanism undermines trust in EU institutions, particularly among the societies of Central and Eastern Europe.

• The relocation mechanism, covering 30,000 people across the Union, will in no way reduce the difficulties faced by the EU, which receives around one million asylum applications each year. In its current form, it is therefore a completely ineffective tool. However, any at-tempt by the Commission to increase this figure risks further eroding public trust.

• In the current political context, the priority should be to strengthen the security of EU citizens by decisively im-proving the effectiveness of returns for individuals who have not been granted international protection.

• The effectiveness of returns can be enhanced by expanding the application of the concept of safe countries and by establishing joint return centres. These projects are already under consideration, but they must go through the full legislative process involving both the positions of the Member States (the Council) and the European Parliament. There is a risk that these initiatives may be ‘watered down’ or even completely blocked in the European Par-liament.

• It is in the interest of Poland, as well as of the entire EU, to broaden the use of the concepts of the instrumentalization and weaponisation of migration. This should lead to the adoption of EU legislation prohibiting the acceptance of applications for international protection in situations of hybrid warfare (such as at the Polish–Belarusian border). Failure to adopt such a solution will lead to tensions within the Schengen area, particularly along the Polish–German border, and, in an extreme case, could contribute to the collapse of the area altogether.

• From a political perspective, it is essential to make full use of the fact that until 31 December this year, the Council of the European Union is chaired by Denmark – the Member State with the most stringent migration policy in the EU. In order to strengthen the emphasis on the ‘rights of communities’, the next three years of Council presidencies should be used to the fullest, as they will be successively held by Cyprus, Ireland, Lithuania, Greece, Italy, and Latvia (July – December 2028). The latter four countries have a particular interest in a thorough reform of asylum policy. Taking into account the priorities of the Merz government in Germany, this creates within the EU a favourable long-term political context for deep changes in migration policy over the next three years.

• One of the main factors attracting migrants is the relatively high level of social benefits, particularly in Germany and France. Efforts should be made to reduce this pull factor by introducing conditional social benefits available only to those in employment (with exceptions, for example, for persons with disabilities or mothers with children under the age of three) and by promoting labour market integration.

• Any breach of the principles of hospitality should result in immediate deportation. A mechanism for the automatic expulsion of refugees should be introduced in cases in-volving crimes that violate the fundamental values of host societies – including benefit fraud2, violent offences (particularly those against women and children), religiously motivated crimes, and threats or acts of violence against public officials or services (automatic detention and de-portation). It must be remembered that asylum is not granted by any court or tribunal – it is granted by society.

• The externalisation of migration through the establishment of reception centres in third countries (and the processing of asylum applications outside the EU) is highly unlikely, given the current case law of the courts. The introduction of such solutions should begin with countries that are candidates for EU membership (agreements with Rwanda or Uganda are doomed to failure from the outset). In this context, the future of the ‘Albanian model’ will serve as a litmus test for further developments.

• The Pact does not address the lack of effective criteria for identifying those who are genuinely most in need of as-sistance. It is based on a flawed systemic logic which, as a rule, assumes that all countries are unsafe. From this starting point, the EU then draws up a list of safe countries. The approach should be the reverse – a general presum-ption that all countries are safe, with exceptions made only in clear and specific cases by establishing lists of unsafe countries for certain groups (for example, minorities in Syria such as Yazidis, Christians, and Alawites; Copts in Egypt; or women from Tigray). The purpose of international protection is, in principle, to safeguard the life and health of refugees – not to create a right to live in democratic states. Liberal democracies represent only a small segment of the global order. If such a criterion were genuinely applied, it should be remembered that there are over 120 million refugees worldwide

This report has been financed by Europe of Sovereign Nations Group

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