Financial Implications of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum: Will the Next Multiannual Financial Framework Cover the Costs?

On 23 September 2020 – at the time of what seemed (but turned out not) to be the photo finish of the negotiations of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) – the European Commission proposed the New Pact on Migration and Asylum with the appended package of new legislative proposal. The aim of this article is to look at the financial implications of the Migration Pact and examine whether the ambitions of the new Pact are reflected in the 2021-2027 MFF. The text will try to respond to two questions. Firstly, it will examine whether the Migration Pact generates new costs for the EU and its Member States and whether these costs have been calculated into the MFF.; and secondly, it will consider whether the creation of additional costs by the Migration Pact could interfere with its successful adoption and implementation.