THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Towards a new legislative term

MIGRATION AND ASYLUM POLICIES 89 cess to employment (six months after application, instead of the current nine) and training and protection of un- accompanied minors. However, the chosen Directive for- mula has proven ineffective for this harmonisation, giving the Member States a wide margin to design and manage these integration and reception processes. Consequently, in January 2023, the Commission began infringement procedures against Spain, Belgium, Greece and Portugal for not transposing the current Reception Directive. Regarding the first Regulation for an EU Resettle- ment Framework (European Parliament 2022a), this is the only EU standard that opens a legal, safe line for refugees requiring protection in Europe. Although the EU’s role is strengthened to determine priority regions or countries and two-year planning, the resettlement framework is based on the willingness of the Member States and there will be no mandatory quotas. During the Czech Presidency, the Commission pre- sented Action Plans for two of the main routes used by migrants to enter the European Union, with a se- ries of operating measures to address immediate and current challenges whilst reaching an agreement on all the CEAS files, that might offer more structural solu- tions. Both plans are focused on the external dimension of migration, outsourcing migration screening to third countries and easing return of migrants. In the Justice and Home Affairs Council of December 2022, the Com- mission was invited to present Action Plans for the other routes to tackle this external dimension globally. (Coun- cil of the European Union 2022c) The Action Plan on the Central Mediterranean (Euro- pean Commission 2022a), presented on 25 November 2022, proposes twenty measures, revolving around 3 pillars, intended to reduce irregular and unsafe immigra- tion, offer solutions to new challenges involving search and rescue at sea and strengthen solidarity, balanced with responsibility among Member States. However, it does not prevent the deficiencies detected in the past in terms of setting up safe and predictable landing mecha- nisms, stable relocations or cooperation with Libya, whose history of human rights infringements among migrants has been widely reported (UN Support Mission to Libya 2018). The Action Plan for the Western Balkans (European Commission 2022b), presented on 6th December, focuses on strengthening cooperation when managing migra- tion and border controls with the Balkan States, on their path to joining the European Union. This refers to twenty measures grouped into five axes: strengthening border controls on the Balkan route, strengthening the asylum systems for the Balkan States, the fight against people trafficking, readmission and return agreements, and a visa policy in line with the European Union. The negotiations to reform the CEAS continued their path under the Swedish Presidency (1 st January to 30 th June 2023), although with an excessive emphasis on increasing returns and pressuring third countries to co- operate in readmission of their nationals, using restric- tions in the visa policy and conditionality in commercial agreements. On 24 th January 2023, the European Commission presented a new operating strategy for more effective returns (European Commission 2023), showing how the main operative goals were optimising the return pro- cesses in each Member State, always complying with fundamental rights; increasing voluntary returns and re- integration; maintaining a collaborative focus between Member States, Frontex and the Commission, taking into account the third countries; and improving data collec- tion and statistics to build a more efficient return policy. Only a few days later, the Member States discussed this proposal in the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA), focusing on cooperation with third countries (Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2023). On 16th March 2023, the Commission published its Recommendation (EU) 2023/682 on mutual recognition of return decisions and expediting returns that aims to support a “faster, seamless migration process” with ties between asylum and return. In turn, in April 2023, the European Parliament set its negotiation position, always taking the package ap- proach, on the Proposal for the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, the Proposal on the Proce- dures Regulation, the Proposal on the Screening Regu- lation and the Proposal for the Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation. In general, it maintains the Commission’s proposal with limited improvements regarding protection of hu- man rights for people requiring international protec- tion. It thereby reinforces the independent border su-