Eleonora MILAZZO

Research Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute, where she focuses on research-policy collaboration. She is also Senior Adviser at the European Policy Centre and Associate Fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels

The Pact on Migration and Asylum has been presented as a turning point, with its entry into force as the culmination of a lengthy process marked by tensions unlike any seen in almost any other reform effort in the history of EU integration. The pact crystallises a fragile political agreement on a complex set of legislative reforms. But what will be decisive is its implementation over time, rather than its adoption. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pact’s solidarity component.

Indeed, this solidarity component reveals the fundamentally reparative intent of this reform. At its core is a permanent mechanism to support member states facing migratory pressure by requiring all EU countries to contribute – whether through the relocation of asylum seekers, financial contributions or operational assistance.

This mandatory but flexible approach reflects a political compromise between those member states that favour responsibility-sharing and those opposed to binding relocation schemes. With limited political space for structural, incremental change, the primary goal has been to remedy the governance failures exposed during repeated reception and border management crises. These failures have strained asylum systems across Europe and reinforced polarisation around migration.

The aim of the pact is therefore to restore trust in the EU’s capacity to devise a migration and asylum management system that is fairer and more efficient than the previous one, or than member states acting on their own.

The reforms consolidate rather than transform the allocation of responsibilities among member states through a permanent system of redistributing asylum management obligations across the EU. The Dublin principle – whereby the member state of first entry is responsible for examining asylum applications – remains intact. The logic surrounding it is reinforced through border procedures codified in stringent terms.

At the same time, the pact introduces, through the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR), an annual ‘solidarity cycle‘ through which the European Commission assesses migratory pressure and proposes a solidarity pool for the following year. Within this framework, those member states facing migratory pressure become beneficiaries of solidarity measures, while other member states are required to contribute through relocations, financial contributions, or operational and technical support. The forms that solidarity can take, as well as the beneficiaries and contributors, are therefore codified in the pact’s legal framework.

The governance of predictability

In this consolidation, the main novelty for solidarity is not the allocation of responsibility or the determination of mandatory contributions per se. Rather, it is the governance and implementation cycle for operationalising and monitoring solidarity, the so-called ‘solidarity cycle’. This cycle will also be the key benchmark for assessing whether solidarity is achieved in practice. It will determine whether responsibility transfers work effectively, whether solidarity pledges are sufficient, and whether resources are enough to support member states under pressure.

A more effective governance and implementation cycle can provide one of the essential conditions for solidarity: predictable reciprocity, or the reasonable expectation that member states will do their share and reciprocate contributions and efforts.

Member states act as contingent compliers in EU asylum and migration governance: their willingness to comply with common obligations depends on their expectation that other member states will also contribute fairly. This matters because perceptions of fairness influence cooperation. If governments believe others are shirking their responsibilities, they become less willing to uphold their own commitments, potentially triggering a downward spiral of non-compliance.

The issue is therefore first and foremost one of collective action. Effective governance can help mitigate this collective action problem by making cooperation more predictable, despite the high salience and politicisation of migration making things more difficult.

Consolidated governance, old uncertainties, new risks

Improving governance and predictability is a necessary step towards making solidarity viable. Yet just as the system’s underlying premises have not changed, neither have its potential risks and uncertainties.

Interdependence among the reforms is the first source of uncertainty. The success of the governance of solidarity remains de facto conditional on member states fulfilling their individual responsibilities, including the systematic registration of asylum seekers in Eurodac, the prevention of secondary movements, and adequate reception and transfers. Solidarity, therefore, continues to depend on the success of other components of the pact, particularly its foundations, the expanded and faster external border procedures.

However, it will take time to assess whether member states are implementing effectively the pact’s border procedures, registration requirements and rules on secondary movements, while solidarity commitments have already been made through the first annual solidarity cycle, with pledges agreed in December 2025 and implementation expected during 2026. Member states will therefore have to deliver on solidarity before the fulfilment of other obligations under the new system can be properly assessed.

Related to this, a further source of uncertainty concerns the system’s ability to manage large numbers of arrivals and asylum applications. Absent strong political commitments to solidarity, the real effectiveness of the new governance of solidarity remains premised on keeping these figures low. While arrivals and asylum applications have dropped in the last two years, the question remains as to whether this new system is another ‘fair-weather’ redistribution mechanism (similar to the one that collapsed in 2015-2016) or one with stronger structural foundations.

Solidarity commitments so far fall below expectations. For this first solidarity cycle, covering the period from June to December 2026, member states agreed on 21,000 relocations and €420 million in financial contributions, about 30 per cent below the minimum thresholds set in the AMMR (30,000 relocations and €600 million). While this is partially explained by the shortened duration of the first cycle starting only in June, it also signals the difficulty of committing under the new system.

The relocation targets for the first cycle also appear difficult to meet. Germany, for example, has already concluded deals with Greece and Italy to avoid taking in asylum seekers. Overall, solidarity pledges are most likely to take the form of offsets rather than direct contributions in countries under pressure.

Domestic narratives of solidarity, specifically those involving relocations, represent yet another risk. Solidarity contributions bear a high political cost in a context of the continuously high salience of migration in public debates. While the pact itself remains largely unknown to the general public, and confined to policymaking, solidarity attracts more attention. In Poland, for example, the pact has come to be associated primarily with relocations in public debates and has also been rejected for this reason. This politicisation of solidarity reinforces the reluctance of member states to disclose national implementation plans, further feeding into general uncertainty.

Solidarity, but about what?

The outlook of solidarity under the new system is not just about target contributions but, crucially, also about the goals that we think this principle should help us pursue. The question, therefore, is: solidarity, but about what?

Solidarity is a concept loaded with normative meaning. We commonly use the term ‘solidarity’ in a positive sense. We associate solidarity with supporting each other in the face of shared adversity. Yet solidarity is, at its core, morally neutral. Its value depends on the goals of the actions that we undertake ‘in solidarity’ with others.

As I have argued elsewhere, the goal of solidarity among member states is, and should be, to provide effective protection to people who are entitled to it, uphold the rights of all, and help member states that struggle or face disproportionate costs fulfil their obligations.

Increasingly, however, the object of solidarity appears to be shifting. Rather than focusing on redistribution mechanisms that support member states in providing protection in an efficient and fair way, member states’ coordinated efforts focus on keeping arrivals and application numbers to a minimum, including at the cost of progressively watering down guarantees for fundamental rights.

The expansion of the use of ‘safe country’ concepts, third country agreements and the recently adopted Returns Regulation point in this direction. Most importantly, the new solidarity contributions themselves could be used to improve reception and integration for new arrivals or, quite differently, to prevent people from arriving.

Solidarity has so far settled on a political compromise. More ambitious solidarity remains politically out of reach and has rarely been seriously championed.

Ultimately, the hope behind the pact is that gains in efficiency and effectiveness, in the solidarity component as much as in other pillars, will generate political momentum for a more strategic, value-based understanding of EU migration and asylum governance.

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