Two years after its adoption, the Pact on Migration and Asylum began applying on June 12, 2026. But with the deadline reached, several member states remain ill-prepared to implement key parts of the overhaul, particularly at the bloc’s external borders.
“Hungary remains the most conspicuous outlier in terms of political will, while several Mediterranean states (Cyprus, Greece, Italy) face both the heaviest migration pressure and significant implementation gaps in legal protections,” Başak Yavçan, head of research at the Brussels-based Migration Policy Group think tank, told The Parliament in an e-mail.
Under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary stubbornly resisted the pact. It voted against the legislation in 2024, declined to submit a national implementation plan, refused to contribute to the solidarity pool — the mechanism designed to share responsibility among member states — and didn’t request any pact-related funding from the European Commission.
Still, while Prime Minister Péter Magyar, elected in April, has said Hungary “will not accept any pact or such an allocation mechanism,” Yavçan believes there could still be “a more pragmatic shift” towards implementation.
On the EU’s southern frontier, concerns are less about political opposition than administrative readiness. Italy, Greece and Cyprus — all identified by the Commission in late 2025 as being "under migratory pressure" — have yet to fully implement safeguards to protect asylum seekers. Delays in ensuring access to legal aid, assistance with asylum applications and independent monitoring of border procedure, could leave migrants’ rights vulnerable as the new system comes into force.
Who watches the borders?
The pact requires that member states establish and fund independent monitoring mechanisms to ensure border screenings and asylum procedures comply with EU and international law.
Most governments have opted to entrust the role to national ombudspersons. But it’s unclear whether those bodies will have the resources needed to operate independently.
“They [ombuds institutions] cannot receive funding, in principle, from a government. And EU funds, they come directly to interior ministries,” said Eleonora Testi, senior legal officer at the European Council on Refugees and Exile, an alliance of NGOs focusing on refugee rights. In some cases, she added, ombudspersons have been asked to take on new responsibilities without receiving additional funding.
The monitoring mechanism is intended to act as a deterrent against rights violations at the EU’s borders.
Yet significant gaps remain. While the mechanism covers asylum screening procedures, it doesn’t extend to border surveillance activities, Yavçan said. It’s therefore unclear how it “will deal with push backs at the border.”
Six member states — Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Sweden — have yet to designate the body responsible for monitoring fundamental rights.
Legal aid gaps
Similar concerns have been raised about legal counselling for asylum seekers.
According to the Commission’s State of Play report, published on May 8, nearly all member states are close to concluding arrangements for free legal counselling. However, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia and Italy have not yet defined such arrangements.
How that counselling will be delivered has become another point of contention. Some countries rely on NGOs, independent agencies or legal aid associations, while others plan to use government-linked bodies.
In a statement published on June 10, ECRE warned of a possible “conflict of interest” when the same authorities tasked with managing asylum procedures are also responsible for advising applicants.
Civil society groups have also questioned whether some planned models will provide meaningful legal assistance. For example, Testi pointed to Greece weighing group counseling as an option. “It will probably be 30 to 50 people in cases of emergency that will be provided counseling at the same time, she said. This is information provision, it's not legal counseling.”
The migration pact's digital backbone
Another challenge is the rollout of the revamped Eurodac database. Used to determine which member state is responsible for assessing an asylum application, Eurodac will be expanded beyond fingerprints to include facial images as well as identity and travel documents of migrants from the age of six — a measure criticized by civil society organizations.
Eurodac “will support the entire system,” said Virginie Jacob, senior adviser on migration and diversity at the European Policy Centre think tank. The system is supposed to make it easier to track whether asylum seekers have already applied in another member state. Without it, one of the pact's central aims — reducing secondary movements across the EU — becomes much harder to enforce.
Sixteen member states reported in mid-April that they were behind with Eurodac implementation, although they expected to solve the issues in time. Meanwhile, 11 planned to rely on a temporary centralized solution developed by EU-Lisa which, according to Jacob, would mean recording a larger volume of data more than once, increasing the administrative workload and potentially slowing registrations.
The unfinished return agenda
The return regulation — often called the ‘missing piece’ of the pact — is scheduled for a final vote in Parliament on June 17. While most provisions would apply one year after its formal adoption, some measures, including the framework for return hubs, will take effect immediately.
Rights groups have warned that the new system could lead to more asylum seekers being detained. In a statement marking the pact’s entry into application, Human Rights Watch said this was because “people undergoing screening and, subsequently, the asylum border procedure, have not yet been legally authorized to enter the EU.”
Under current rules, migrants can be detained for up to 18 months if deportation cannot be carried out within 12 weeks. The proposed return regulation could further extend the maximum detention period.
The real migration test lies ahead
Whether the pact can deliver on its promises may only become clear when migration pressures rise again. Irregular migration to the EU fell 26% in 2025 compared to the previous year, meaning the new regime is entering into force under favorable conditions.
For Testi, that makes it too early to judge its effectiveness. “You assess whether a system works in times of emergency, not in times of very low arrivals,” she said.
Speaking at the briefing on the pact’s entry into application, MEP Tomas Tobé (EPP, SE), the Parliament’s chief negotiator on the reform, said that in order to avoid the high number of secondary movements the EU saw in 2015, it’s important for us to understand that we do need to ease the burden on countries under pressure.”
But two years after the pact’s adoption, some lawmakers remain frustrated by the lack of preparedness.
“It’s not that we started at zero, we had European asylum legislation even before," said MEP Birgit Sippel (S&D, DE), chair of the working group in the LIBE committee for the implementation of the Pact. “So […] the effort from member states should have not been that big."
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