Eduardo González
The People’s Party (PP) parliamentary group has asked the government to vote in favor of the provisional agreement on the EU Returns Regulation, which establishes, among other things, the creation of return centers in third countries and detention periods of up to 24 months, as a necessary condition for implementing the European Pact on Migration and Asylum in Spain.
In a non-binding motion submitted on July 1 for debate in plenary session, the PP recalled that the European Pact on Migration and Asylum (EPAM), “the most ambitious reform of the European Union’s migration and asylum policy in recent decades,” entered into full force on June 12. The EPAM “aims to strengthen the control of external borders, expedite asylum and return procedures, combat illegal immigration, and ensure a more orderly, effective, and coordinated management of migration flows throughout the Union.”
“Significant questions remain about Spain’s actual level of preparedness to assume the new obligations arising from European regulations,” warns the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, which points out that the European Commission, in its latest implementation report, identified Spain as one of the member states that had not yet guaranteed “asylum and return procedures at the border, which have been mandatory since June 12.”
According to the PP, “the European Pact on Migration and Asylum cannot function with full effectiveness without an adequate returns policy that guarantees that everyone who does not have the right to reside in our country is effectively returned.”
“The new Returns Regulation, which is expected to come into force in the coming days, will give member states new tools and a new legal framework to expedite procedures and guarantee their implementation, particularly in cases involving individuals who pose a risk to the security of our citizens,” it continues.
“The Spanish government, on the contrary, is one of the few that have decided to oppose the new Returns Regulation,” a decision that “once again places our country in a position of isolation compared to the vast majority of its European partners and demonstrates a worrying lack of responsibility and solidarity in the search for a common response to the migration challenge,” the People’s Party (PP) asserts.
For all these reasons, the PP urges the government to “vote in favor of the provisional agreement on the Returns Regulation reached between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, and guarantee its effective implementation from the moment it enters into force.” It also calls for, among other measures, that “all the necessary legislative and regulatory reforms to complete the adaptation of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum to the Spanish legal system be processed urgently” and that “a detailed report on the degree of implementation of the National Implementation Plan for the European Pact on Migration and Asylum” be submitted to the Spanish Parliament.
The regulation and the Government’s position
The regulation, which replaces the 2008 Return Directive and is opposed by left-wing groups in the European Parliament who argue that it fails to guarantee fundamental rights, accelerates the deportation of non-EU nationals, obliges these individuals to cooperate with return authorities, authorizes their detention for up to 24 months (or even longer, under certain conditions), and allows for their expulsion to return centers in third countries.
On June 8, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement for the application of the regulation, and three days later, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, described these measures as “disproportionate,” arguing that they could violate both European Union principles and international law. Speaking to the press before participating in the meeting of European Union interior ministers in Luxembourg, Grande-Marlaska stated that, while the Migration Pact “has been a step forward” in European migration policy, the new returns regulation is “quite the opposite.”
For his part, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez reiterated on June 18 in Brussels, during the European Council meeting, his “rejection of the returns policy that has been proposed and approved by the European Parliament, by the People’s Party and the far right.”
“We believe there are two negative aspects that justify our rejection: firstly, because it is a waste of economic resources; policies that create or outsource migration policy to third countries are absolutely ineffective, and I think we already have enough comparative experience,” he explained. “Secondly,” he continued, “there is an added reputational problem of values, where the message that Europe is conveying is not exactly the right one; it is not about sharing the challenge of migration jointly with the countries of origin and the countries of transit, but rather conveying a message that this is their problem for third countries and that what Europe is going to do is turn inward.”