“The reform of the Common European Asylum System represents solidarity between EU member states. It reduces irregular immigration and ultimately provides relief to the countries most affected. A historic, necessary step” says German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a post on Platform X in a first comment on the approval of the Migration and Asylum Pact by the European Parliament.

And the Minister of the Interior Nancy Feser from the Social Democrats welcomes the new Pact, while even before its passing she had described it as “key for immigration control”. As it states in its post: “With the new rules we achieve orderly procedures instead of chaos and lawlessness at the external borders. The approval of the overall package by the European Parliament is a very important success”.

In fact, as the German Interior Minister comments: “We overcame a deep division in Europe regarding immigration. We continue to protect people fleeing wars and terror by coming to us. We are finally distributing this responsibility towards them fairly in Europe. We will effectively limit irregular immigration.”

However, other members of the Social Democrats, such as their representative for internal policy issues in the European Parliament, Birgit Schipel, believes that although the “package sets clear rules that make the member states responsible” but at the same time admits that the agreement required “significant concessions’ in particular in matters concerning procedures at the EU’s external borders and in particular the matter of possible ‘imprisonments’.

Eric Marquardt in an earlier EU mission on the Greek-Turkish border

Reactions from Greens

The new Pact foresees, among other things, fast and stricter control procedures at the gates of first entry into Europe, but also a mechanism of solidarity between the member states that includes, alternatively, their distribution within the EU or the provision of financial support or technical assistance to deal with immigration.

“It’s all about deterrence,” observes Eric Markard, MEP and representative of the Greens on immigration policy. The Greens continue to have objections to keeping children and families in camps, which they do not see as a successful asylum policy.

And Terri Reidke, vice-president of the Green group in the European Parliament, estimates that the Pact “will not solve the intolerable situation at the EU’s external borders and will ultimately bring little results in terms of better management of migration. Instead it will create more bureaucracy.”

The Left talks about “crocodile tears”.

Criticism of the EU, the Social Democrats and the Greens is carried out by the head of the party of the Left, Martin Sirdevan, who believes that Europe is abandoning humanitarian values ​​in the face of the fear of the rise of the extreme right. As he emphatically notes: “Asylum reform marks the burial of the EU’s humanitarian principles. No one should believe the crocodile tears of the Social Democrats and Greens. The German coalition government consciously agreed to all of this.”

According to data from the German Statistical Office, from January to the end of March 2024, approximately 71,000 asylum applications were submitted to Germany. In 2023, Germany received a total of nearly 352,000 asylum applications, a record number since the difficult 2016. At that time, approximately 746,000 applications for asylum were submitted to the competent Federal Office for Migration and Asylum.