The Diplomat
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, yesterday urged his European counterparts to “take a step forward and prioritize the external dimension of their migration policy” and warned, during the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council meeting held in Luxembourg, that the Migration and Asylum Pact “still does not provide realistic and satisfactory solutions to many of our problems”.
The European Union must face the migratory challenge with a policy “based on cooperation with the countries of origin and transit of migration to prevent departures and avoid the loss of lives”, said Grande-Marlaska during the JHA meeting, the first to be held in person since March 2020 and in which the Interior Ministers of the 27 have reached an agreement that the external approach should be the focus of the debate on migration policy at the next European Council, to be held on June 24 and 25.
On the Migration and Asylum Pact, the Spanish minister called for a “greater level of clarity and firmness” in cooperation and prevention at source because “the Pact, today, still does not provide realistic and satisfactory solutions to many of our problems”. Likewise, Grande-Marlaska defended the need to share the responsibility for migration among all countries and to define clear rules of solidarity and real application.
