Common Implementation Plan for the Pact on Migration and Asylum: The Local and Regional Perspective

CIVEX-VII/032

Common Implementation Plan for the Pact on Migration and Asylum: The Local and Regional Perspective

Antje GROTHEER
Antje GROTHEER
Member
Vice-President of Bremen State Parliament
 antje.grotheer@spd-fraktion-bremen.de
 +49 421 336770
 EN - DE
Commissions: CIVEX-VII , SEDEC-VII
The main objective is to ensure that the Common Implementation Plan for the Pact on Migration and Asylum recognises the vital role that local and regional authorities play in the implementation of the Pact.
The CoR opinion advocates that this Pact is effectively applied across all Member States, using the proposed solidarity mechanism.
The opinion emphasises the critical role of local and regional authorities in migration management, advocating for their inclusion in decision-making processes, especially in areas such as screening, return procedures, and migrant integration.
A core objective is to improve direct access to EU funds, such as the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), for LRAs. This access is critical to support reception, integration, and inclusion efforts at the local level.

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
 welcomes the Common Implementation Plan, as a first orientation for Member States on their way to ensuring that what has been agreed in the Pact for Migration and Asylum is fully implemented;
 welcomes the annual solidarity cycle and the interlinkage between the 10 building blocks on which the Plan is founded;
 points to the fact that the foremost aim of a Common European Asylum System is to guarantee the adherence to the principle of non-refoulement and the right to asylum;
 points to the importance of effective and efficient multi-level governance of the Plan and subsequently, to the key role of local and regional authorities (LRAs) in the implementation;
 calls for the legal recognition of the specific situation of external border regions in EU policies in the area of freedom, security and justice, given the particular impact of migration flows on those regions.
 underlines the urgent need to facilitate the direct access of local and regional authorities to funds related to the integration and inclusion of migrants, and the need to take this into account in the mid-term evaluation of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) 2021-2027;
 underlines that it is of the utmost importance to select and designate the locations for the screening and border procedures as well as the return border procedure in close consultation and in agreement with the LRAs;
 welcomes EURODAC in principle but reiterates the CoR’s call for full compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation;
 reiterates its concerns with the concept of instrumentalisation in the Schengen Borders Code and argues that Member States should guarantee effective protection against refoulement, including the right to make an application for international protection, and that appropriate safeguards for the treatment of vulnerable people are in place;
 underlines the need to ensure that, in the context of relocations, LRAs responsible for the proposed place of relocation are informed and consulted at an early stage.
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