Spain’s EU presidency aims to finalise negotiations on a migration reform package – a series of laws on migration management – by the end of the year, Euractiv reports.
The Migration and Asylum Pact is a group of legislative documents that the EU is trying to approve before the end of its mandate, which will end in early June after the European elections. It will give the whole continent common rules for managing migration flows from the first arrival of third-country nationals in EU member states.
Most of the files under discussion are interrelated. For this reason, it is important for the Spanish Presidency to “approve them all together”. The Spanish government currently holds the rotating six-month presidency of the Council of Ministers, an institution in which EU ministers act as “co-legislators” alongside the European Parliament.
Finalising negotiations on the migration pact is “a priority for the Spanish presidency”, a diplomatic source told Euractiv, noting that the issue is high on the agenda every day at the Council’s internal meetings.