Less than three months remain for all European Union countries excluding Denmark to prepare for the overhaul of EU migration and asylum policies, set out in the Migration and Asylum pact. Member States will have to apply most of the new measures from 12 June onwards. The pact of ten new laws and revisions of existing procedures, aims to improve consistency and coherence in migration policy across the EU and should finally lead to a common European asylum system.
The European Commission has set high expectations with four ‘pillars’:
Secure borders, with stricter checks for irregular migrants at the EU’s external borders and mandatory, faster border procedures for asylum applicants unlikely to need protection;
Fast and efficient procedures with clear rules which EU country is responsible for handling applications, harmonised standards on asylum seekers’ rights and criteria for protection across the EU;
Solidarity and responsibility, with a permanent framework for EU countries to participate with relocations, financial aid or operational support;
International partnerships to prevent irregular departures, fighting migrant smuggling and cooperation on returns of rejected asylum-seekers.
It is clear that the EU’s centrist parties see the Pact as more than just technical fixes. When the pact was adopted, not coinciditenally two months before the European elections, then Commissioner Ylva Johansson said the ‘Pact will help us to protect people, to protect our borders and manage migration in an orderly way.’ But her political group also said it ‘represents a strong answer against the politics of fear propagated by right-wing populists’. I also remember from when I worked there that many Members of European Parliament of the liberal Renew Europe group were really eager to adopt these laws, not in the least for their own political odds. And in the October 2025 Dutch elections, centrist parties hailed the pact as the holy grail that would solve most of the Netherlands’ issues on migration and asylum.
Tension between responsibility and solidarity
Yet, perhaps shockingly to many EU bureaucrats, mere laws and rules on paper do not change reality. It’s not that the EU currently lacks common migration and asylum laws. The main problem was that Member States never fully implemented the rules they had. No law represents this more clearly than the Dublin Regulation. It says that the first EU country an asylum seeker enters is responsible for processing their claim. But ‘Dublin’ has since its existence been criticised as unfair because it disproportionately burdens (Southern) ‘frontline’ states such as Greece and Italy. Northern countries such as Germany or the Netherlands in turn criticise its ineffectiveness, as they remain major destination states and face pressure when the countries that are by this law responsible for processing the claims, simply ignore claims to take migrants back. This deteriorated trust among member states.
In this way, the Dublin Regulation embodies the permanent tension between EU countries on solidarity and responsibility on migration policy. As researcher Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas already wrote in 2015, “The Dublin system was the result of a precarious balance of powers between countries with diverse circumstances and interests that are often opposed. While some ask for an integrated system that shares responsibility more fairly, others insist on maintaining national prerogatives”.
That lack of compliance with common rules and different national interests could again hamper EU countries’ implementation of the Pact. This tension is most visible in the so-called solidarity pool, part of the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation that replaces the Dublin Regulation. As the Commission said, to balance the current system where a few member states are responsible for the vast majority of asylum applications, the new solidarity mechanism should lead to a fairer sharing of responsibility. The key of course is should.
The new rules combine ‘mandatory solidarity’ to support member states dealing with a mass of irregular arrivals, with flexibility as regards the choice of the individual member states’ contributions, at their own discretion. As the result of a political compromise between EU countries, they can choose to contribute either through relocations of asylum-seekers, financial support, alternative solidarity measures, or a combination.
Yet a majority of EU countries have already said they will contribute cash instead of ‘taking over’ asylum-seekers from other countries. And as with Dublin, the country of first arrival principle remains, meaning that these solidarity provisions will barely alleviate the burden placed on some member states. The Pact also won’t change that some EU countries like Hungary barely receive asylum requests and simply refuse to process them. Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that the Pact will ‘only function if all contribute fairly’. But how long will ‘mandatory solidarity’ remain intact if some don’t contribute at all?
With this question unsolved, the EU is already working on new laws. On February 10, the European Parliament endorsed the creation of an EU list of safe countries of origin to fast-track requests by nationals of Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Kosovo, India, Morocco and Tunisia. Member states will be able to add additional safe countries of origin. EU countries should also be able to apply the safe third country concept with respect to asylum seekers who are not nationals of that country and refuse their application more easily. This includes when the EU or Member States have an agreement with the third country for processing asylum seekers there, like the United Kingdom wanted to do with Rwanda.
Returns and non-EU countries
Another part of the puzzle is increasing the rate of rejected asylum-seekers who have received a return order, but don’t actually leave the European Union. This return rate has hovered around 20% for years. It went up in the third quarter of 2025, when 115.440 non-EU citizens were ordered to leave an EU country, and 34.155 people (29%) actually returned to third countries. Eurostat says 40% of all returns were classified as “forced”, meaning most people who received an order to leave didn’t leave voluntarily. At the same time, countries only enforce 20% of return orders.
As a result, in 2023 1.3 million people were in the EU illegally, despite the ‘no human is illegal’ folks’ empty slogans.
That is why the Commission proposed a new Return Regulation in March 2025, yet to be negotiated by the Council of the EU and European Parliament. 12 days ago, a European Parliament majority from the centre-right (christian democrat) to the far-right backed a compromise on this law, overriding the liberal negotiator. The alternative compromise introduces stricter obligations for migrants to cooperate with authorities, expands the scope for detention, and retains so-called return-hubs, facilities in non-EU countries where rejected asylum-seekers could be sent so they can be returned to their country of origin. It also means member states can return irregular migrants to third countries unrelated to their origin, as long as they have agreements with those countries in place. Additionally, member states will be able to directly enforce a return decision issued by another member state to persons who should leave the EU territory, without restarting the procedure.
Yet here again, the question remains how European countries will deal with third countries that simply refuse to take back their citizens. So far, the European Commission has mainly used ‘carrots’ in signing migration deals with countries like Egypt and Tunisia. Simply put, the EU gives money for migration management and economic development to those countries, while they are expected to bar more migrants from leaving those countries for the EU. These deals seem to be working, as the EU’s Border and Coast Agency Frontex recorded 26% less irregular border crossings in 2025 compared to 2024. So far, the EU has refrained from using the ‘stick’ such as granting less development aid to countries that barely take back returned asylum-seekers. If return rates don’t go up, that might be unavoidable.
Nevertheless, the EU also needs to get its own migration and asylum house in order.
With less than three months to go before this drastic overhaul of the EU’s migration and asylum policy kicks in, one thing is clear: the proof of the migration pact pudding is in the member states’ eating. And implementation of technical EU laws has rarely been more political.
Unfortunately, I feel that nothing will change. The entire asylum system was a mechanism suited for earlier times; such a system can't function in the 21st century, especially when combined with universal human rights for the entire planet. The only solution is to abolish the entire asylum system and eliminate all pull factors, such as generous welfare for foreigners.