The European Parliament voted to accept the controversial Migration Pact, dictating the proportionate distribution of migrants among EU Member States regardless of the national government’s policies, back in April this year. The resolution was formally accepted by the EU Council the following month, in May.
Some Member States, including Hungary, and Poland under the new, pro-EU Tusk administration, have voiced their concerns over the resolution. And now,
it seems those concerns have been vindicated as valid.
Minister for European Union Affairs János Bóka of Hungary shared a post on his Facebook page, lamenting the recent decision by the EU Commission on the execution of the Migration Pact. He wrote:
‘Today, the Commission published its implementing decision on the adequate capacity to be put in place for the border procedure.
In order to implement certain provisions of the Migration Pact, which Hungary opposes, Hungary and Italy would have to permanently maintain more than half of the total reception capacity at the EU’s external borders, ie 15,332 places (Hungary 7,716, Italy 8,016), and to process up to 31,464 persons at the border in the first year of implementation. In the following years, the number of border procedures should be guaranteed up to three to four times the total reception capacity,’ the Minister wrote.
‘The share of the other Member States is far below these figures. This is because the number of illegal entries prevented by our country has been outstanding in the previous year,’ he concluded his post.
Despite Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni running on a strict anti-migration platform back in 2022, the Italian government was more subdued in voicing its opposition to the EU Migration Pact. PM Meloni had stated in the past, after meeting with her Czech counterpart Petr Fiala, that third countries outside of the EU should be involved in solving the European migration crisis, something that the EU pact does not stipulate. Meanwhile, PM Fiala said that ‘The Czech Republic and Italy are among the countries that want to go beyond where the migration pact has taken us and want to find a real solution to illegal migration’ following his meeting with PM Meloni.
President Sergio Mattarella of Italy, on the other hand, outright praised the Migration Pact after its passing in the EP in April 2024. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, however, hit a lot more solemn tone on the matter: he called it ‘another nail in the coffin of the European Union’.
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