Migration law burnout The journey from proposal to law in the European Union legislative path is painfully slow and equally complicated. The average file takes more than a year and a half to be concluded. At the far end of the spectrum of complication is the so-called “New Pact for Migration and Asylum” that the European Commission published in September 2020, a handful of legislative files, all of them connected to each other. The package does not concern agreements with third countries or search and rescue (SAR) activities in the Mediterranean. The first are covered by member states in the Council as part of the EU’s ‘external dimension’. That means it is the foreign policy section of migration, where EU ministers vote with unanimity. SAR activities are already regulated by the international law that the EU subscribed to. And that adds another layer of complexity to the picture. Why clarify these points? Because politicians use a narrative in which they mention the pact and put together these aspects of EU politics. They are connected, but not related. So, what is in the pact? Everything related to the management of third-country nationals arriving at the EU borders, reception, registration, the management of international protection application, the secondary movements (or even better said, the ‘not’ secondary movements), returns and resettlements. What is in the pact was clarified in September last year, when the EU institutions made a commitment to conclude the migration files (which are a total of ten pieces of legislation) before the end of the next legislative mandate following the elections in June 2024. The so-called roadmap has the ambition to give the EU a continental approach to migration, a goal that the EU has tried and failed to reach multiple times before. Why? Because migration law is subjected to heavy political pressure, instrumentalisation of the topic by governments during election campaigns, and high media attention. Media coverage of migration is not a bad thing. What is bad in the picture is how migration is often used as a driver of votes. That leads to bad lawmaking. Let us explain why. EU lawmakers are in a hurry to agree the pact in the coming months. Being in a rush is never a good thing when it comes to deciding sensitive issues, and having a proper risk assessment. They are in a hurry because the next EU Council presidencies after the June 2024 European elections will be Hungary and Poland, two presidencies who would see it as political gain if they are able to tell their countries that they are blocking Brussels in approving migration acts. There is a window of opportunity in the next few months that, if missed, will then be closed for a while, on top of the existing difficulties of legislative procedure Maybe some files of the pact will be approved before next June. But how robust and valuable is legislation approved in a hurry under massive political pressure? At the same time, can Europe afford to again fail to have an EU legal framework for migration? If EU legislators reach the goal, the next mandate could well open with the chapter of a new story: the implementation of measures that sounded acceptable to ministers and civil servants in Brussels but may be very unsuccessful on the ground. That is the likely consequence of legislative burnout. | 