EU migration pact lacks 9,000 places

On 12 June, Greek border officers started seven-day asylum screenings under the EU’s new migration system. That same day, Germany’s interior minister confirmed that internal border checks would remain until at least September. Both countries are bound by the same ten legal acts. They are applying them in very different political conditions.

The Pact requires every EU country to screen irregular arrivals within seven days, run biometric checks through Eurodac, the EU’s shared fingerprint database, and direct people into asylum or return procedures. Most of these rules are regulations, meaning they apply directly without each national parliament passing a separate law. But a rule on paper still needs offices, trained staff, holding space, caseworkers and working databases. Malta knows that gap well enough: EU migration policy becomes domestic policy the moment people arrive at the border.

Fast compliance, executive shortcuts, administrative strain

Lithuania passed a full legislative package, assigned an ombuds office for rights monitoring, and earmarked €73.9 million in EU funds (Lrytas). It also signed a bilateral deal with Cyprus to relocate 58 people and paid €1.14 million for the rest of its solidarity obligation (LRT). The numbers are small, but the machinery exists.

France chose speed. The government introduced an enabling bill to adapt French law by executive ordinance, rather than debate the Pact article by article in Parliament (Vie publique). Le Monde reported that practitioners and NGOs are now dealing with a mix of decrees, orders and circulars, creating a "zone of legal uncertainty."

The Netherlands added its own restrictions on top of the EU rules, including the abolition of permanent asylum permits and tighter family reunification. The IND, the Dutch immigration agency, warned that the combined workload could overload the service. The country still lacks around 23,000 reception beds, with 100 of 342 municipalities providing no shelter at all (DutchNews).

Political rejection in compliance clothing

Poland secured a temporary, one-year exemption from the 2026 solidarity pool. The Commission granted it because Poland hosts more than a million Ukrainian refugees and faces instrumentalised migration at the Belarus border (Onet). The Interior Ministry then declared that Poland "will not accept migrants from other states or bear related costs", turning a one-year exemption into the language of a permanent opt-out.

Berlin says the Pact should reduce irregular secondary movements and eventually make internal border controls unnecessary. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is keeping those controls until at least 15 September 2026, without publishing any threshold for lifting them. Only three of Germany’s sixteen states want to establish secondary-migration processing centres (Tagesschau).

Solidarity pre-diluted

The Pact’s burden-sharing mechanism was meant to stop frontline states such as Greece and Italy from carrying asylum pressure alone. That matters to Malta, even when the island is not at the centre of a given week’s arrivals. A relocation system that misses its own floor leaves small border states exposed first.

The legal text sets annual minimums: 30,000 relocations and €600 million in financial contributions (Commission Q&A). Member states pledged less. According to Euronews, the 2026 outcome landed at 21,000 relocations and €420 million. The effective numbers fall further once exemptions such as Poland’s are counted.

Greece passed its implementing legislation on 9 June (gr.euronews.com) and is already running screening and border procedures. Human Rights Watch warned that the independent monitoring required by the Pact does not automatically reach the places where coercive border practices occur. The rules guarantee monitors at screening points. They do not cover what happens before someone enters the system.

The Commission can open infringement proceedings and recover unpaid solidarity contributions. It cannot run asylum offices, staff border posts or build shelters. Poland’s exemption comes up for renewal in December 2026, which will be the first test of whether the Pact’s solidarity obligations survive contact with national politics.