The EU Migration Pact & A Call To Action

This week, the European Parliament narrowly endorsed a migration pact which will create wide-reaching reform to the asylum seeker procedure in Europe.

The purpose of the reform is to alleviate pressure from Southern Europe, which has borne the brunt of the migrant crisis, and spread responsibility across member states.

Euronews:

Under this system, member states will have three options to manage migration flows: relocate a certain number of asylum seekers, pay €20,000 for each claimant they refuse to relocate, or finance operational support, like staff and equipment. Brussels aims at 30,000 relocations per year but insists the system will not force any country to accept refugees as long as they contribute through any of the other two options.

The pact will also give the EU the power to centrally impose asylum seekers on member states when it deems there is an emergency elsewhere in the world, leading to a “mass and sudden arrival of third-country nationals.”

Although there are aspects of the legislation intended to strengthen EU border security and fast-track the process of rejecting bogus asylum seekers, given the pro-immigration consensus among European elites, it is likely the centralisation of these policies will undermine states looking to secure their borders.

The right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists and Identity and Democracy groups voted against the bill, which narrowly passed and will now go to member states, where it is expected the Visegrad countries will reject it. Poland’s liberal prime minister Donald Tusk came out strongly against the “mandatory solidarity” measure, promising that “Poland will not accept illegal migrants under any such mechanism.”

Fundamentally, this is a further erosion of sovereignty to EU bureaucrats, and the idea of a quota of refugees the EU expects every year means that countries pursuing a nationalist path will always owe a financial debt to the rest of the union to cover the quota.

In theory, Ireland refusing asylum seekers and just paying the 20,000 would actually be less expensive than what it currently costs to house them. But if the government had the will for that, they would be doing something about the thousands of bogus asylum seekers taking advantage of the system right now.

Given how questionable some of the “emergencies” supposedly causing the influx of immigrants to Europe have been, it is especially concerning that the EU can now enforce new refugee numbers to unlimited numbers if it decides something meets that standard.

What if, for example, it were decided that “climate emergency” qualifies millions of illegal immigrants desiring entry to Europe as legitimate refugees? While small states like Ireland or Hungary could reject this, it would be a decision made at EU level. And while they could still refuse to take the resulting migrants, they would incur larger and larger costs as these quotas increased.

A couple of Irish Independent TD’s have demanded this be put to a vote, comparing Ireland’s constitutional protections to Denmark, which has rejected the pact.

Given that there has been so little debate or discussion around this highly significant legislation, it’s important to now demand politicians reject the opt-in and put this to a vote.

Though the government TD’s look set to vote this through, it’s important to keep pressure on the issue of immigration and create a real debate around this.

You can find the emails of all sitting TD’s and Senators HERE.