After an agreement was reached on the Pact on Migration and Asylum, work has started to translate the set of legislative acts into an operational reality over the next two years. The legal instruments that constitute the Pact on Migration and Asylum will indeed become applicable as of mid-2026. In order to ensure that the necessary administrative, operational, and legal steps are taken by all relevant stakeholders, the Commission presented on 12 June 2024, a Common Implementation Plan.

The Common Implementation Plan provides the framework for a joint work programme for the next two years, including the legal and operational deliverables, the structures for discussion, and relevant operational and financial support. It groups the different obligations stemming from the various legal acts and the actions needed to operationalise them into 10 building blocks that are fundamentally interdependent and need to be implemented in parallel:

• A common migration and asylum information system (Eurodac): to support the functioning of the Pact in practice, notably with the determination of responsibility and the monitoring of secondary movements.
   
• A new system to manage migration flows at the EU external borders: to manage the irregular arrivals of non-EU nationals and set up fast, efficient, and streamlined procedures for asylum and return, as well as strong safeguards.
   
• Rethinking reception: to provide material reception conditions to applicants for international protection, taking into account their gender, age and any special reception needs, and to develop new tools in the management of reception that provide for added flexibility, efficiency, and the prevention of secondary movements.
   
• Fair, efficient, and convergent asylum procedures: to streamline the assessment and decision-making process of individual asylum applications across Europe and reinforce the safeguards, rights and guarantees for applicants and beneficiaries of international protection.
   
• Efficient and fair return procedures: inter alia to optimise the use of Frontex support, exchange practices and experience on the joint issuance of negative asylum decisions and return decisions and cooperation on return of returnees posing a security threat.
   
• A fair and efficient system: making the new responsibility rules work: to ensure systematic and swift transfers to the Member State responsible, inter alia by shortening deadlines and by transforming the take-back procedure into a notification. 
   
• Making solidarity work: through a permanent, legally-binding but flexible solidarity mechanism, to ensure that no Member State is left alone when under pressure.
   
• Preparedness, Contingency Planning and Crisis response: to build more resilience to the evolution of migratory situations as well as reduce the risks of situations of crisis. 
   
• New safeguards for applicants for international protection and vulnerable persons, and increased monitoring of fundamental rights: to protect human dignity and ensure a genuine and effective right to asylum, including for the most vulnerable, as well as the access to effective remedies.
   
• Resettlement, Inclusion and Integration: to provide a viable alternative to irregular and perilous journeys, and to invest in the long-term cohesion of societies and economic well-being.

The Common Implementation Plan will be presented to Member States at the Home Affairs Council, after which it will be used as a basis for the preparation of Member States' National Implementation Plans which are due by 12 December 2024.

For further information, please read the press release from the European Commission and the Common Implementation Plan.