Ireland focuses on making EU asylum, migration pact 'real success' to tackle issue: Premier

By Nur Asena Erturk

Ireland focuses on making an EU asylum and migration pact a “real success,” the Irish prime minister said Thursday.

“We should always be willing to consider innovative solutions once they are grounded in that… I think the priority should be to see how we can make the asylum and migration pact a real success,” Simon Harris told reporters at the doorstep of the EU Council meeting in Brussels.

Ahead of the Brussels meeting, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent a letter to the leaders of the member countries, saying they should continue to “explore possible ways forward as regards the idea of developing return hubs outside the EU, especially in view of a new legislative proposal on return."

"With the start of operations of the Italy-Albania protocol, we will also be able to draw lessons from this experience in practice," she said.

On Wednesday, Italy sent the first group of migrants to Albania as part of a deal signed between the two countries.

The deal sparked a backlash from human rights organizations. In January, Amnesty International and other advocacy groups condemned the Italy-Albania deal, calling it "unworkable, harmful, and unlawful" and urging lawmakers to reject it.

The Italian scheme is reminiscent of a controversial UK plan to send asylum seekers to the African nation of Rwanda that faced multiple court challenges.

Harris welcomed von der Leyen's letter but said the bloc should be careful that its proposals are not "misinterpreted."

He recalled that he "deplored everything about the Rwanda policy." That policy did not "really work," and did not "achieve much at all," and "was not in any way compatible with human rights at all," he said.

"I'm absolutely of the view that the most important way to make progress on managing migration is the asylum and migration pact," Harris said, adding that the purpose should be to ensure "fair but also firmer" systems.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, for his part, said Italy’s solution could be considered for now "expensive" and "not really efficient."

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also stressed the need for an efficient return policy for migrants.