Roberta Metsola, the European parliament president, wrote on X: “History made. We have delivered a robust legislative framework on how to deal with migration and asylum in the EU. It has been more than 10 years in the making. But we kept our word. A balance between solidarity and responsibility. This is the European way.”
It’s impossible to control the supply side, aside from stabilizing the countries that refugees are coming from.
Any measure to try to handle refugees outside of the EU inevitably ends with the EU paying corrupt dictators to go and shove refugees in tents and torture/kill them, see Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, etc. It also opens up the door for dictators like Putin and Erdogan to hold these refugees over the EU’s head, and use them as a weapon to flood Europe with refugees if the EU ever tries to hold these dictators responsible. Any attempt to pay Turkey/Egypt/etc to handle refugees is a wasteful PR stunt at best, and a footgun that causes human suffering at worst.
A sustainably-financed way to handle refugees inside the EU, and also having a quick way to catch those gaming the system, is the only way to reach a sustainable solution.
I don’t know too much about this bill, and I’m sensitive to the human rights arguments that the left has made. But,considering how this bill is simultaneously criticized by the far right, while also smartly reducing the burden of asylum intake, I get the feeling that this bill finally struck the right compromise to get this damn immigration debate out of European politics.
“It’s impossible to find a solution, except for the solution.”
ah yes, world peace, that famously easy to achieve solution