Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wants to speed up the start of the new migration pact in the European Union for the summer of next year. According to the EFE and AFP agencies, he said this during today’s debate in parliament.
Spain has seen a sharp increase in migrant arrivals this year, and the government has faced sharp criticism from the right-wing opposition.
“We will ask the European Commission that the Pact on Migration and Asylum come into effect sooner,” Socialist Prime Minister Sánchez said during a debate with MPs. The aim is that “the means envisaged by the pact regarding border control and the redistribution of migrants will start to apply from the summer of 2025 and not from the summer of 2026”, he explained.
“In Brussels, we will ask for a policy of co-responsibility and solidarity,” Sánchez also said. According to the Prime Minister, the Spanish government wants to lead a “responsible and humanitarian” migration policy. The cabinet will also present a plan for the integration of foreigners in the coming weeks. According to Sánchez, migration can bring “tremendous benefits” to Spain, and the government is about to open a new program for labor migration.
The government is facing criticism from the conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox for the growth in the number of migrants arriving in Spain without a permit. People’s leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo today called on Sánchez to ask Brussels for help. With this, the People’s Party conditions negotiations with the government on changing the law on foreigners, which should enable the redistribution of unaccompanied minors between Spanish regions.
This problem mainly concerns the Canary Islands, where there are 5,500 minors, the facilities on the islands have only 2,000 places for them. The Canary Islands, where migrants arrive from the northwest coast of Africa, are the most affected by the increase. Almost 31,000 migrants arrived in the archipelago in the first three quarters, twice as many as in the first nine months of last year. Detail for the whole of Spain, it increased year-on-year from 25,000 to 40,000 migrants.
According to a survey published this week by El País, 41 percent of Spaniards are very concerned about migration. This is 16 percentage points more than last year. Differences according to voter preference are evident. 73 percent of Vox voters, 46 percent of People’s Party voters, but only 29 percent of Socialist party voters and 15 percent of far-left Podemos voters are very concerned.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
