Brussels, Belgium, 11 June 2026 — As the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum takes effect tomorrow (12 June), not only does it lack vital safeguards to protect people seeking safety, but governments have failed to explain how the new rules will work in practice. This leaves people seeking asylum unable to understand their rights, and the organisations supporting them unable to prepare.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that the new regime marks the biggest rollback of rights for people seeking safety in Europe in more than a decade - likely to result in more deterrence, detention and deportations.
These new rules were pushed through the legislative process without the robust safeguards needed to ensure that people's rights are upheld in practice, and the IRC is concerned that EU states’ own National Implementation Plans may have failed to put in place the practical measures needed to prevent serious rights violations. The IRC is particularly concerned about protection gaps in key areas including:
- An absence of transparency around detention facilities and processes as people going through the Pact’s new border procedures in Europe will no longer be considered to have formally entered EU territory, resulting in them being deprived of access to the rights and protections that would usually apply.
- New ‘safe country’ rules are likely to result in deportations being significantly ramped up, including people being sent to detention centres outside of EU territory which are essentially legal black holes.
- Greater risks facing vulnerable groups due to ‘fast-track’ screening processes, which may result in children and others with specific needs not being identified or receiving the protection and care they are entitled to under EU and international law.
- Limited access to protection and legal assistance, including insufficient guarantees that people arriving at EU borders will be able to access timely legal information and support.
- A lack of rigorous fundamental rights monitoring mechanisms, which may not have the power or independence to monitor, ensure compliance, and hold those who violate people’s rights fully accountable.
There also remains an alarming lack of clarity about how the rules will be implemented in reality. While most EU+ countries have submitted National Implementation Plans to the European Commission, only around half have so far been made publicly available. Without full visibility into how the new rules will be applied it is difficult for people seeking safety, and the civil society organisations supporting them, to assess how states intend to implement the Pact and whether they will uphold their legal and moral obligations.
Marta Welander, IRC’s EU Advocacy Director, says:
"As the Pact enters into force, many of the safeguards needed to prevent serious rights violations remain inadequate, untested or absent altogether. In practice, the rules are likely to result in states making life or death decisions about people’s future in a matter of days, without the people directly impacted having guaranteed access to legal support. It also risks normalising prolonged detention, with more people - including families with children - being held in undignified prison-like conditions.
As implementation begins, it is essential that EU states consider the safeguards outlined in the Pact to be a minimum standard, not a ceiling. Europe should not judge the success of this Pact by how quickly people are processed or deported, but by whether their rights are protected throughout the process.”
Susanna Zanfrini, IRC’s Italy Country Director, says:
“In Italy, where hundreds of people arrive in search of safety every month, the Pact’s implementation is not a theoretical debate. Within days, many people who have already experienced unimaginable difficulties and trauma will soon be stripped of their rights. Just as alarming is the lack of clarity in publicly available guidance on how these rules will be applied in Italy. This creates uncertainty for both people seeking protection and the organisations supporting them at the very moment they most clear information about their rights, options, and access to support to survive, recover and rebuild their lives.”
The IRC is calling on the EU and its member states to:
- Go beyond the minimum safeguards set out in the Pact to ensure that rights are robustly protected, including the establishment of robust and fully independent monitoring mechanisms.
- Immediately publish National Implementation Plans to enable public scrutiny and accountability.
- Ensure that the new ‘solidarity mechanism’ is centred on relocating people away from countries of first-arrival to others with more capacity to meet their needs, with financial contributions used to welcome people with dignity rather than deter them from arriving in Europe at all costs.
- Guarantee that all asylum cases are heard fully, fairly and on their own merits, regardless of where people they come from or how they arrived in Europe.
- Set a rigorous standard for what constitutes a "safe country" and a guarantee that no one will be sent to a country where could face torture, persecution or other rights violations.
- Expand safe pathways, including scaling up refugee resettlement and humanitarian admissions pledges, so people are not forced onto dangerous journeys in search of protection.