New European Pact on Migration and Asylum: the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) expresses concern over protection of human rights

On 12 June 2026, the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum came into force. Adopted in 2024 by the European Commission, it aims to replace the emergency management of migrants arriving in Europe with a structured regulatory framework common to all twenty-seven Member States.

The Pact rests on four pillars:

1. achieving more secure external borders;
2. ensuring faster and more efficient procedures;
3. establishing an effective system of solidarity and responsibility;
4. safeguarding migration within international partnerships.

The new Pact also introduces new obligations for Member States regarding the fundamental rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Despite this, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), in its migration bulletin for 2026, has already highlighted the persistence of certain fundamental rights concerns for people arriving at external borders and for those displaced from Ukraine. In particular, the FRA has raised the following concerns:

• the number of deaths at sea remains high on the Mediterranean and Atlantic routes, despite the decline in arrivals: between April and June 2026, at least 559 people died or went missing on these routes to Europe, including at least 15 children;
• civil society organisations engaged in search and rescue operations at sea continue to face legal difficulties and sanctions, although courts in some Member States have recently blocked or annulled such sanctions;
• numerous reports persist of summary returns (pushbacks), violence, and restrictions on access to asylum, while investigations into alleged rights violations at the borders proceed slowly, are interrupted, or remain unresolved, fueling a perception of impunity;

The new Pact requires Member States to establish independent fundamental rights monitoring mechanisms during border checks and throughout the asylum procedure, in order to prevent abuses and ensure that those responsible are held accountable. Most States, however, have not yet managed to give concrete effect to these provisions, in a context marked by shortages of resources and staff training. The FRA has developed a common monitoring methodology to strengthen the protection of fundamental rights and is currently piloting it in cooperation with several Member States.

The organisation Human Rights Watch has denounced that the new Pact is eroding the right to asylum for people arriving at the borders of EU Member States. The new mandatory border screenings rely on a legal fiction whereby the migrant, although physically present on EU territory, is deemed not to have legally entered it. This regulatory device opens the door to widespread and systematic use of administrative detention in border centres, extendable up to six months, potentially affecting even vulnerable individuals and minors. The emergency clauses introduced for cases of large-scale arrivals or alleged "instrumentalisation" of migration flows by third countries will also allow governments to temporarily derogate from European standards, restricting procedural rights. Finally, the Pact facilitates agreements with non-EU countries to delegate to them the examination of international protection claims. According to HRW, this legitimises the transfer of asylum seekers to third countries even in the total absence of stable family, cultural, or social ties, effectively externalising the right to asylum beyond the EU's borders.