Council Sets 2026 Migration and Border-Tech Priorities at December JHA Meeting

EU home affairs and justice ministers met in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council on 8 December 2025 to settle several positions that will shape migration policy and border technology in 2026. The agenda ranged from faster returns and asylum reform to the connection of the EU's large-scale IT systems and a discussion on emerging security threats.

Photo by Leonhard Niederwimmer on Unsplash

Migration: returns, safe-country lists and the 2026 solidarity pool

The Council settled its position on three laws designed to speed up and simplify the procedures for returning rejected asylum seekers and to make asylum processes faster. The return regulation establishes common procedures for returns, sets obligations for illegally staying third-country nationals to cooperate with migration authorities and provides tools for cooperation between member states. The EU will also draw up a list of safe countries of origin, allowing member states to handle protection requests from people from those countries in an expedited manner, while a new regulation on the safe third country concept gives member states more options to reject an application as inadmissible.

Ministers framed the agreement as a turning point, arguing that the European asylum system needed clearer answers and that more migrants without a right to stay should actually be returned. The deal came roughly six months after the European Council, on 26 June, called for intensified work on returns and on the safe-country concepts. The Council also reached a political agreement on the annual solidarity pool for 2026, a central element of the Pact on Migration and Asylum that supports member states under migratory pressure. The Pact is due to start applying from 12 June 2026.

Schengen and the interoperability roadmap

Over a working lunch, ministers discussed how to strengthen the external borders of the Schengen area, addressing persistent gaps and new vulnerabilities. They also approved a roadmap for rolling out the EU's interoperability architecture in 2027-2028. Interoperability refers to the ongoing effort to interconnect the EU's security IT systems so that national authorities have seamless access while persons are correctly identified, fraud is detected and security threats are checked.

With the Entry/Exit System for borders, the ETIAS travel authorisation and the updated Eurodac fingerprint database all having started operations in 2025 or planned for 2026, the Council is now turning to the remaining building blocks of the common border and security IT architecture. Travellers can read our overview of how ETIAS works for the practical, pre-travel side of these systems.

Internal security: drones, threats and organised crime

Ministers discussed the implications of the malicious use of drones for law enforcement, exchanging views on possible EU responses such as better coordination of anti-drone activities, harmonised standards and more funding for research. The debate underlined an urgent need to act quickly. In a restricted session, ministers received the six-monthly threat assessment from the European domestic security and intelligence services.

On organised crime, the presidency summarised the priority actions taken under the EU roadmap to fight drug trafficking and organised crime since October 2023, a roadmap of 17 short- and medium-term actions. The Commission presented its new EU drugs strategy and an action plan against drug trafficking, both published on 4 December 2025. Under other business, ministers were briefed on access to data for law enforcement, the EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Forum held in Sarajevo, and the incoming Cyprus presidency's work programme.