On 13 December, the EU Council agreed on its position on an EU law on preventing and countering migrant smuggling. The agreed text foresees that ‘intentionally assisting a third-country national to enter, transit across or stay within the territory of any of the European Union member states, in exchange for financial or material benefit constitutes a criminal offence’.
Fortunately, the Member states retained the Commission’s initial proposal of inserting a so-called humanitarian clause in a recital to the proposal, to specify that certain assistance to irregular migrants, notably assistance to close family members or support to provide basic human needs, may not qualify as a criminal offence of migrant smuggling. However, because this clause is maintained only in the recitals, it will be up to the member states to decide how to address this issue in national legislation. The text also accentuates the fact that member states are free to adopt or maintain national legislation that provides for stricter measures. See Statewatch’s critical assessment.
Image: mayu**, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0