The European Parliament votes in favor of reforming the asylum system – news.ORF.at

The European Parliament has voted to reform controversial asylum law. After years of debate, MPs in Brussels today paved the way for a pre-negotiated settlement that would significantly tighten current EU migration rules.

Among Austrian MEPs, the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS all said they voted in favor of the entire package. FPÖ MPs opposed this except for one regulation, namely that the Green Party does not support the Asylum and Migration Convention. The vote in the EU Parliament in Brussels had to be interrupted at one point because demonstrators in the hall protested loudly against the package.

The package stipulates unified border procedures on the external borders of the European Union. In particular, there are plans to deal more harshly with people coming from countries considered relatively safe. Until a decision is made on their asylum claim, people may be housed in concentration camps under prison-like conditions. It should be possible to deport rejected asylum seekers to safe third countries more easily in the future.

In the future, the distribution of protection seekers between EU countries will be reorganized using a “solidarity mechanism”: countries that no longer wish to accept refugees must provide compensatory support, for example in the form of cash payments. When particularly large numbers of refugees arrive in an EU country, “crisis regulation” must come into effect. The refugees could then be detained for a longer period.