The European Union is on the cusp of introducing new measures on migration. The Asylum and Migration Pact, three years in the making, was agreed between the European Council and the European Parliament this week and awaits formal adoption.
The pact will fundamentally overhaul the asylum and migration landscape across the European Union, according to the Government. Measures include common rules, databases, and policies. Member states will also be required to take asylum seekers from hard-pressed member states such as Italy and Greece, or else contribute financially. At its simplest it will make it easier to deport asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected from the EU and limit entry.
The pact does not automatically apply here because Ireland is not a member of the Schengen common travel area. The rest of the EU will be bound by the pact two years after its formal adoption. Ireland will decide in the first half of next year whether to opt in, according to Minister for Justice Helen McEntee.
The need for such a pact reflects the political pressure which EU governments are under on the migration issue and the need to be seen to be taking action. The pressure grows. This week saw France plunged into a political crisis after parliament passed an immigration Bill that included many hardline measures inserted by the far right. The Bill goes much further than the pact. It limits access to welfare for immigrants, introduces quotas and restricts citizenship. The Bill has divided president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist grouping, and one minister has resigned.
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The Government here is also under pressure to respond to the growing wave of anti-immigrant sentiment of which the burning down of a hotel in Connemara destined to house asylum seekers is just the latest manifestation.
To date the Coalition has held the line, with no legislation currently proposed to tighten up Irish immigration law. The decision on whether to opt in to the new EU pact will be one litmus test of its resolve.