Half of EU countries missed first deadline to implement migration pact

Almost half of Member States have failed to submit National Implementation Plan for managing migrations to the European Commission in time for a deadline. Poland is one of the countries, while Italy and Hungary have not responded to Euronews inquires as to whether they have submitted plans.

All the EU member states were required to transmit their plans by 12th of December under regulations underpinning the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, a major reform of EU migration policy adopted in May 2024 after much wrangling.

Each National Implementation Plan should outline the actions and the timeline a Member States is taking in order to adapt to new rules, detailing all related costs.

But the day after the deadline expired, only half of these plans are on desks at the EC. “We can now confirm that so far 14 Member States have submitted their National Implementation Plans,” a European Commission Spokesperson told Euronews, adding: “We remain in close contact with all Member States, and are supporting the remaining ones so that they can submit their plans as soon as possible."

The Commission spokesperson said that it will take measures if countries fail to submit their plans soon. “Such measures have to be proportionate, taking into account upcoming submissions in the near future and considering the general context of the ongoing work for the Pact to enter into application mid-2026,” the spokesperson said. 

Long-held Polish opposition

Poland has no intention of submitting it in the coming days, and the incumbent government led by Donald Tusk believes that the Migration Pact as it stands is incomplete, a source familiar told Euronews. The Polish currently want to focus on their eastern border, where tensions remain high due to irregular crossing from Belarus, rather than producing the document, the source added.

“We are here in a positive mood following the announcement by the European Commission, which recognizes our arguments regarding border protection,” Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said on Thursday in Brussels, referring to a recent Commission decision. 

Brussels this week gave political approval to Poland's contentious plan to introduce a time-limited, territorial suspension of the right to asylum, in response to the migration flows coming from Russia and Belarus.

Polish resistance to the Pact has spanned Tusk’s government and that of his predecessor Mateusz Morawiecki.

Warsaw opposes some provisions to relocate at least 30,000 asylum seekers from EU states with large numbers of arrivals to other EU countries. According to the new pact, governments have three options to contribute to this mechanism: relocate a certain number of people, pay €20,000 for each one they reject, or finance operational support in countries under migratory pressure.

Poland doesn’t like any of these options and tried to block the legislation, voting it down along with Hungary in the Council. 

Frontex, the EU's border and coast guard agency, found the Eastern Land border - that includes Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - registered 16,530 irregular crossings in 2024, but almost 14,000 of them are Ukrainian nationals, covered by temporary protection that grants them a residence permit in the EU.

According to data from the European Agency for Asylum, Poland received 9,519 applicants in 2023.