The Council has put some political plaster over some of the Union’s sorest wounds, migration. It has decided that southern member states under migratory pressure will be able to send 21,000 arrivals to other EU countries, or receive €20,000 per every relocation unfulfilled.
On 8 December, during the European Home Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, EU migration ministers agreed two major developments. Firstly, they put a price tag on a human existence at €20,000. That is the amount any of the countries overwhelmed by immigration in the past decade is to receive for hosting each of the first 21,000 migrants expected to arrive next year.
Other EU countries pledged to take a minimum of the said 21,000 people between them — or pay up. This mechanism, or the solidarity pool, is designed to support member states experiencing significant migratory pressure. The measure seeks defuse a lot of political tension in the process.
Secondly, the ministers made it easier for the bloc to send migrants back home — or, simply, elsewhere. “It is important to give people back the feeling that we have control over what is happening,” said Magnus Brunner, the migration commisisoner, upon his arrival at the meeting.
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What makes a country ‘safe’?
The new framework for handling asylum and migration also includes the regulations on safe third countries. The regulation revising the concept of a safe third country is to expand the circumstances in which an asylum application can face rejection as inadmissible (i.e., without consideration of its merits).
The Council thus completed an important element of the 2024 Pact on Migration and Asylum by agreeing on the first common EU list of safe countries of origin, which will allow member states to process applications for international protection more quickly.
Specifically, the safe third country concept allows EU member states to deem an asylum application inadmissible for those seekers eligible to receive international protection in a safe non-EU country. Under the updated rules agreed by the Council, member states will be able to apply the safe third country concept based on the following three options.
Link, transit, exam
First, there is a “link” between the asylum seeker and the third country. (What actually constitutes such a link, however, remains not entirely clear.) Moreover, this link will no longer be a mandatory criterion for using the safe third country concept.
The second option is if the applicant transited through the third country before reaching the EU. Finally, there is an agreement or arrangement with a safe third country that ensures that a person’s asylum application undergoes examination in the said country. However, the application of the safe third country concept based on an agreement or arrangement is not possible in the case of unaccompanied minors.
We will not accept any refugees under the migrant relocation mechanism, nor will we pay any contribution in this regard. — Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland
“We have just taken two very important decisions: we have decided on the concept of safe third countries,” said Rasmus Stoklund, Danish immigration minister. “We now have the legal framework for member states to set up reception centers and other similar solutions with third countries. This is extremely important for addressing the fundamental flaws of the current asylum system, which we have been talking about for many years—that it doesn’t work, that we help the wrong people and don’t help those truly in need—and for controlling migration to Europe. This is an important step forward we have just taken,” the minister stressed.
Wobbly criteria
An applicant who appeals an inadmissibility decision based on the safe third country concept will no longer have the automatic right to remain in the EU for the duration of the appeal process, while the applicant’s right to apply to a court for the right to remain remains in effect. The rules on safe countries of origin are based on the assumption that applicants from those countries enjoy sufficient protection against the risk of persecution or serious violations of their fundamental rights.
Non-EU countries can only be designated as safe countries of origin if they meet a high safety threshold. European ministers agreed that the following countries should be designated as safe countries of origin at EU level: Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco, and Tunisia.
Countries applying for EU membership are also designated as safe countries of origin at EU level, unless there is a situation of international or internal armed conflict in the country; restrictive measures have been adopted that affect fundamental rights and freedoms; or the rate of positive decisions by member state authorities regarding applicants from those countries.
Optimism rules
This arrangement aims to make it possible to spend member states’ resources much more effectively, the hope goes. “We will be able to reject people who have no reason to seek asylum in Europe, and it will be possible to create mechanisms and procedures that allow us to send them back more quickly,” adds Mr Stoklund, the Danish minister. “This will allow us to create partnerships that are attractive both to third countries and to us, in order to develop new asylum procedures,” Commissioner Brunner remains optimistic.
However, the Council’s position clarifies that the Commission should monitor the situation in EU candidate countries and inform member states when one of these exceptions applies or ceases to apply. The Council also agreed to allow the Commission to suspend the designation of an EU-wide safe country of origin for the entire country or only for parts of its territory or population, where duly justified.
Member states will still be able to maintain their own national lists of safe countries of origin. The will also be able to add third countries not featuring on the EU list.
Money without responsibilities
The solidarity mechanism will take effect on 12 June. During the meetings of the High-Level Forum on Solidarity (held on November 18 and 27, 2025), member states committed to making their own solidarity contributions.
There are three types of solidarity measures: relocations, financial contributions, and alternative solidarity measures such as equipment. It is up to each member state to decide which type of solidarity measure to commit to, including the possibility of committing to a combination of different measures. The three options mentioned expand the concept of European solidarity, leaving the responsibility to the member states. Some positions have already emerged on this issue.
We will be able to reject people who have no reason to seek asylum in Europe. — Rasmus Stoklund, Denmark’s immigration minister
For Finland, “it is extremely important to make the migration and asylum systems, as well as repatriations, more effective, which are currently not very effective across the European Union,” says Interior Minister Mari Rantanen. She specified that when it comes to solidarity in migrant relocation, her country will only contribute cash, and therefore will not take in migrants.
Not a migrant, not a penny
Germany, on the other hand, says it has already demonstrated great solidarity in recent years, regardless of the Commission’s decision on the Solidarity Pool instrument. “This past solidarity will count towards future solidarity. From our point of view, this is a very good result,” said German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrind.
Warsaw rules out two of the three options. “We will not accept any refugees under the migrant relocation mechanism, nor will we pay any contribution in this regard,” said Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk. On the other hand, “The political agreement reached for Poland is very positive,” said the country’s Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński on the sidelines of the Home Affairs Council.
“I am sure that this will continue to be the case in the coming years, especially since the mechanism clearly establishes that Poland is a country under migratory pressure and that we are helping our Ukrainian friends,” Mr Kierwiński argued. “The path to European security lies in eliminating illegal migration routes, not in shifting the migrant problem from one country to another.”
