THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION REPORT. Europe in a period of transition

NEW EUROPEAN PACT ON MIGRATION AND ASYLUM 107 for the future of Schengen, and will establish a coope- ration and support programme and a Schengen Forum to bring together all the competent authorities and the ministries of the interior (on an annual basis). 4. Strengthening the fight against people- trafficking The Commission announced a New Action Plan to Com- bat Trafficking in Human Beings 2021–2025, will stren- gthen the Directive on Sanctions on Employers, with the aim of preventing the hiring of people in an irregular situation, and will boost cooperation with third countries to improve the fight against people-trafficking through pacts to counteract people trafficking, and joint security and defence policies. 5. Working with international partners The Pact places special emphasis on strengthening bilate- ral, regional and multilateral cooperation between the EU and Member states and countries of origin and transit, such as Turkey, north Africa and the Balkans, on its stra- tegy towards Africa, and on agreements with countries in Asia and Latin America. Its main objective is to influence and develop return policies by maximising the impact of specific agreements to satisfy the needs of both parties. References to safe, legal routes are limited to strengthening resettlement commitments made by states, and other complementary routes such as schemes for humanitarian admission or admission for study or work, community or private sponsorship, and attracting skills and talent to the EU. However, the Commission proposal is not a new be- ginning but, rather, a continuation of the 2015 Agenda, which goes further with respect to returns and exter- nalisation. An intense period of legislative reforms lies ahead, such as the proposed reform of the Procedural Regulations of 2016 on the effective, flexible use of bor- der procedures, and sole legislative instrument on the rules regarding asylum and border return procedures.The 2016 proposed reform of the Dublin Regulation will be withdrawn and the reform of the European common asy- lum system will be relaunched and replaced by a Regu- lation on the management of asylum and migration, and proposed approval of a Regulation to address situations of crisis and force majeure in migration and asylum, and the Temporary Protection Directive will be repealed. But, rather than remedying existing failures, this approach repeats a model that restricts rights, has an excessive focus on returns, strengthens the control and externalisation of borders, and risks violating the prin- ciple of no border returns. The new pre-screening pro- cedure and the accelerated procedure carry a serious risk of reducing procedural guarantees due to the short timeframes established, possible breach of the principle of no return, and excessive reliance on detention. It runs the risk of replicating the problems of the Greek islands on every border, by creating situations of prolonged de- tention. What will happen to those whose applications for international protection are rejected but who cannot be returned because they are protected under the principle of non-refoulement? The new border procedure is based on the premise that the majority of people reaching the EU do not re- quire protection. This prejudges situations that should be analysed individually and within timeframes that are incompatible with accelerated procedures.To this should be added that the possibility of issuing a decision about asylum and return at the same time reduces guaran- tees and threatens the principle of non-refoulement. The majority of the countries to which the new border procedures will be applied are essentially countries of first arrival. With respect to the proposed solidarity system, this represents an a la carte menu for states with the focus on return rather than on protecting people who arrive. This is a missed opportunity in which states could have