The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 100 According to the European Court of Justice, the Community Code on Visas does not oblige Member States to issue humanitarian visas. However, this issue is being currently debated in a case pending before the Grand Chamber of the ECHR – Nahhas and Hadri v. Belgium. Following several failed attempts, the European Parliament passed a resolution on a legislative proposal concerning humanitarian visas on 11 December 2018. 9 In its resolution, the EP requested that the Commission table a legislative proposal establishing the right of third-country nationals seeking international protection to apply for humanitarian visas at the embassies and consulates of EU Member States. Although non-binding, this resolution does con- stitute a message to the Commission of the EP’s strong interest in seeing such legislation formal- ly presented for consideration and debate. This initiative could have a crucial impact over the next few years. Thousands of lives would be saved if EU embassies and consulates were to issue humanitarian visas to people seek- ing to apply for asylum in Europe. Doing so would provide a safe, legal channel for people in danger to seek international protection and weaken the trafficking networks currently tak- ing advantage of their desperation. The Pact on Refugees has the potential to improve response and provide a higher level of protection to refugees in host countries. Its suc- cess, however, hinges on the degree to which all countries involved work within the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, demonstrate accountability and embrace the concept of co-responsibility. 9   http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press- room/20181205IPR20933/humanitarian-visas-to-avoid- deaths-and-improve-management-of-refugee-flows Some of the sharpest criticism of the Pact to date concerns its provisions for the equitable distribution of responsibility. Many maintain that the humanitarian aid, development assis- tance and private investment provided by wealthy countries will not be enough to offset the enormous sacrifices being made by their poorer counterparts. The responsibility for hosting the vast major- ity of today’s refugees (9 out of 10) is currently being borne by developing countries. This bur- den must be distributed more fairly and equita- bly so as to allow poorer countries that have generously opened their doors to vast numbers of homeless strangers to address their own pressing needs. Close inspection nevertheless reveals provisions laid out in the Pact for ad- dressing this issue to be insufficient, vague and not fully-fledged. One example are the specifications for Global Refugee Forums (the first of which is scheduled to take place in 2019), which are cur- sorily described as events at which Member States and other stakeholders will explore op- portunities, challenges and ways of improving burden- and responsibility-sharing. Such mech- anisms should have been defined in a much clearer manner given the key role they are ex- pected to play in ensuring that pact objectives are met on a global scale. The pact has also drawn criticism for certain issues it fails to address or only addresses mini- mally such as internally displaced persons, cli- mate refugees and special protection for wom- en and children. At the end of the day, beyond good inten- tions, the pact’s success will depend upon the implementation of specific indicators for measur- ing commitment to each of the four main objec- tives it lays out and the continuous transparent,