Enlargement and migration in focus in Vilnius

At their first meeting since the European Parliament elections, members of the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX) on 8-9 July discussed two topics that are expected to feature prominently among the priorities of the EU in the next five years - the EU's enlargement and migration.

The meeting, which was held in Vilnius and which was chaired by Patrick Molinoz, Vice-President of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, came two weeks after the EU started accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova and 11 days after national leaders of the EU's 27 member states approved a strategic agenda for the EU for 2024-29 that emphasised the importance of enlargement and the need "to explore the opportunities of migration, including through legal pathways".

Members also had an opportunity to highlight issues brought to the fore by the European Parliament elections and to share early thoughts on an own-initiative opinion that the Committee of the Regions is developing, on the EU's Africa strategy.

European Parliament elections:

In their debate about the European Parliament elections, CIVEX members drew particular attention to the role of women, to young people and to disinformation. In the 2024 elections, as in the 2019 elections, the European Parliament achieved gender balance, defined as 40% of seats being held by women. While women's representation is better at the European level than in national parliaments (36%) and in local assemblies (35%), members called for a faster pace of improvement and for policies in legislatures to prevent gender-based violence and harassment against elected representatives. There were also concerns about the engagement and representation of young people. Only two confirmed MEPs in the 705-member assembly are under 30 years old. The CIVEX Chair also highlighted the role of local and regional authorities and their leaders in fostering democratic citizenship and promoting the EU's founding values in order to restore citizens' trust in the European project.

Enlargement:

The EU's new strategic agenda for 2024-2029 describes EU's enlargement as a "geostrategic investment in peace, security, stability and prosperity", a view echoed by members of the CIVEX commission. Andrius Kubilius (LT/EPP), member of the European Parliament and Co-chair of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, predicted that the new European Parliament will have "quite a strong majority" in favour of strengthening the EU's security, including enlargement, while a representative of the European Commission said there was "no doubt that enlargement will remain one of the next Commission's top priorities". The European Commission described the policy towards the Western Balkans as "trying to replicate" the experience of previous enlargements, in which "the single market contributed exponentially to growth", and said that it was trying to ensure a "level playing field" between countries from the Western Balkans and to the "eastern trio" - Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia.

CIVEX members highlighted the value of early engagement with local and regional authorities in accession countries -- including via city and region-to-region partnerships - to prepare them for EU membership and to strengthen local democracy. At the meeting, the CoR adopted an action plan for cooperation with the European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA).

The EU is currently holding membership talks with Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, as well as Ukraine and Moldova.

Migration:

The CIVEX meeting was followed on 9 July by a conference focused on the integration of refugees and migrants, organised by the Lithuanian hosts, Valdas Benkunskas (EPP), mayor of Vilnius, and the head of the Lithuanian delegation to the CoR, Mindaugas Sinkevičius (PES). Lithuania has in recent years taken in around 100,000 Belarusians and Ukrainians who have fled their homes, after fraudulent elections in Belarus in 2020 and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In 2022, around 61,000 Ukrainians sought refuge in Lithuania, accounting for around 75% of immigrants to Lithuania that year.

The conference came two months after the EU adopted a New Pact on Migration and Asylum, ending what was described by Juan Fernando López Aguilar, chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), as a "decade-long deadlock". Mr López Aguilar said reform of a common European asylum system had been "a top priority for the European Parliament for years, particularly in the last decade", and said that oversight of the implementation of the Pact, which offers "a legal pathway with a clear perspective of integration that will ensure the rights of most vulnerable refugees are respected", would be "a key priority" for the new European Parliament.

The CIVEX chair, Patrick Molinoz, Vice-President of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, said that the conference showed the "urgent need for cooperation and coordination between all levels of cooperation", and reiterated the CoR's position that local and regional authorities should receive "more targeted support" and have "direct access to funding" related to asylum management, migration, and integration.

On 8 July, the CIVEX commission agreed to prepare an opinion on the "Common Implementation Plan for the Pact on Migration and Asylum". They appointed Antje Grotheer (DE/PES), president of Bremen City Parliament, as rapporteur.

Africa strategy:

CIVEX held an initial exchange of views on the CoR's upcoming own-initiative opinion on "Regions and Municipalities implementing the EU Strategy with Africa". The rapporteur, Guido Milana​ (IT/Renew Europe), member of Olevano Romano Municipal Council, described the opinion as a means of "identifying the possible actions that local authorities can take" to become more involved in the EU's strategy toward Africa. The European Commission, which currently supports scores of partnerships between local authorities in Europe and local governments around the world, identified a number of areas of areas in the EU's Africa strategy in which cooperation with the EU's regions and cities would be particularly welcome: in the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package; in implementation of the African Charter on the Value and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development drawn up by the African Union; and in maintaining contacts and cooperation in a number of African countries in which central government has no political dialogue with the European Commission.

The CoR is scheduled to adopt Mr Milana's opinion at its plenary session in November 2024.