BRUSSELS — The European Commission on Tuesday announced which EU countries will be eligible for EU help to deal with migration pressure, and which countries will be exempt from helping out.

Under the EU Solidarity Pool scheme, most EU countries will provide assistance such as taking asylum seekers from countries struggling with high levels of migration, or sending financial and logistical support to deal with the influx.

Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy have been formally recognized as being under acute migratory pressure following a sharp rise in arrivals over the past year, and are thus eligible for assistance from the pool from mid-2026.

The Solidarity Pool is a central element of the EU’s new migration and asylum framework, and is designed to ensure a fairer distribution of responsibilities for dealing with the pressures that migration can create.

Implementing the EU’s migration framework is a matter of balancing solidarity and responsibility, according to Internal Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner. “Everything has to go hand in hand — it’s a parallel development,” he told reporters on Tuesday, adding that the pact ensures countries facing disproportionate pressure are treated differently.

At the same time, the Commission acknowledged that Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Croatia, Austria and Poland are dealing with “significant migratory situations” due to sustained pressures over the past five years.

This designation allows them to request a full or partial rebate from their contributions (whether financial or in terms of relocation) to the solidarity mechanism in the coming half year after the scheme takes effect.

The Commission has identified Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, France, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Finland as being at risk of migratory pressure in the year ahead. They won’t get to opt out in 2026, but are close to the threshold for doing so in future.

The criteria for this ‘at risk’ classification include persistently high numbers of people arriving, overstretched reception systems, and the potential manipulation of migration by third countries like Russia. While not exempted for the time being, these countries will receive priority access to the EU’s Migration Support Toolbox, which provides emergency funding, operational aid and policy coordination.

“Those who are at risk of migratory pressure would still need to provide solidarity and those who are under significant migratory pressure can ask to be exempted from providing solidarity,” a Commission official explained. They added that the EU executive is responsible for assessing the situation, while the EU Council decides which countries fall under each category.

Relocation situation

The most explosive aspect of the scheme has been the requirement that some countries receive asylum seekers who otherwise wouldn’t have gone near their borders.

Thanks to a characteristic Brussels workaround, only solidarity — not relocation — is mandatory under the EU migration and asylum framework. This means that countries ultimately have the choice of either accepting migrants, contributing a financial payment for each person they decline to take in — or offering another form of assistance.

This arrangement was designed to accommodate countries such as Poland, Hungary and Czechia, which opposed making the relocation of asylum seekers compulsory when the framework was agreed in June 2023.

The Commission didn’t publish details on the number of proposed relocations or the amount of money offered in their stead. Under the migration pact legislation, this information won’t be made public until EU countries decide on the final size of the solidarity pool.

Negotiations to turn the proposal into an legally binding act are expected to begin in the coming weeks. Commissioner Brunner will hold a hearing with MEPs on Thursday about this set of proposals — but the European Parliament doesn’t have lawmaking power on the matter.