The European Migration Pact Risks Strengthening The Power Of Judges

Article published in The Hungarian Conservative on June 9, 2026.

The New Pact on Migration and Asylum will become applicable throughout the European Union (EU) on 12 June 2026. It consists of ten legislative instruments: nine European regulations and one directive, the “Reception Directive.”

In France, the debate that preceded the adoption of the EU Migration Pact was particularly heated. The president of the Rassemblement national, Jordan Bardella, issued a statement in April 2024: “For the French people, it will be either submersion or punishment. France will thus be compelled to welcome thousands of migrants into its towns and villages, or face financial penalties in exchange for being spared from doing so. For us, this is an absolute red line. The peoples of Europe do not want to be replaced or overwhelmed; they aspire to protection and respect for their will.”

By contrast, Emmanuel Macron strongly supported the Pact as early as 2022, before his re-election for a second term. He delivered a speech praising the Pact as “an ambitious and comprehensive response that addresses all dimensions of the issue: responsibility-sharing in asylum matters, a solidarity mechanism, and cooperation with third countries.”

The Pact was adopted in May 2024 and since then, it has received very little attention. With the Pact about to become applicable, it is worth revisiting the changes it is set to introduce.

To be fair, some provisions are worthwhile and could help States better control immigration. For example, the procedure for examining asylum applications will be better organized. The Pact also strengthens Eurodac, allowing States to register illegal immigrants at the European level and share information more effectively.

However, the Pact also includes a relocation mechanism. The idea is that migrants and asylum seekers in the countries most affected by migration flows will be relocated to countries that are less affected. If a State refuses relocation, it must pay €20,000 for each person it declines to accept. This is not officially described as a penalty, but as a contribution to a solidarity mechanism.

States therefore face an alternative: either contribute by accepting additional migrants or provide a financial or material contribution instead.

This relocation mechanism is expected to require France to take charge of more than 3,300 additional asylum seekers between 12 June and 31 December 2026. France, perhaps surprisingly, is considered a country that is relatively less affected by migration pressure and should therefore receive migrants from other countries. Germany is in the same situation, with approximately 4,500 additional migrants. Belgium, which could also have accepted additional migrants, chose instead to make a financial contribution and to pay €13 million to the solidarity pool.

The purpose of this relocation mechanism is to relieve countries that serve as migrants’ first point of entry, such as Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, and Spain. Incidentally, it is somewhat paradoxical that the EU is seeking to relieve Spain of migratory pressure when the Spanish government itself does not appear to view that pressure as a problem. On the contrary, it recently granted legal status to 500,000 illegal immigrants.

In the case of France, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, the EU Migration Pact requires modifications to 40% of the legal provisions governing immigration. It will therefore profoundly transform our legal framework. The French Code of Foreigners is less voluminous than the General Tax Code or the Labor Code, but it still exceeds 2,500 pages. This means that roughly one thousand pages would need to be amended.

Among the areas affected is the issue of safe countries of origin for asylum seekers. When an asylum seeker comes from a safe country, the procedure is accelerated to facilitate removal. The European list of safe countries differs from the French list. Material reception conditions provide another illustration. There are circumstances in which these benefits may be restricted or withdrawn, but those circumstances differ between French law and the Reception Directive.

During the last two years, the French government wanted to avoid introducing an immigration bill before the National Assembly, since it lacks a parliamentary majority. The Code of Foreigners has thus not been amended at all. It therefore appears that a substantial portion of this code will become obsolete in the coming days. Sooner or later, there will inevitably be a parliamentary debate on the Pact, since it requires legislative action.

Meanwhile, whenever a provision of the Code of Foreigners is incompatible with the Pact, EU law will prevail and the national provision will be set aside. The nine regulations contained in the Pact are directly applicable, which means that they apply even when conflicting national provisions exist. The Reception Directive, however, is not directly applicable, but national law must still be interpreted consistently with the directive.

All of this work of aligning French law with the Pact should have been carried out by the government and Parliament. Since it was not, judges will effectively have to do it themselves on a case-by-case basis.

An administrative court ruling on the rights of a foreigner will therefore have to reconcile the Code of Foreigners with the EU Migration Pact. This will inevitably increase the discretionary power of administrative judges in migration matters. It also creates the risk of inconsistent jurisprudence or inconsistent consequences for litigants.

This situation will heavily affect France’s administrative courts, since roughly half of their caseload concerns foreigners, and that litigation is likely to become significantly more complex after 12 June.