MADRID (Reuters) -Spain expects to conclude the European Union’s migration deal under its presidency during the second half of this year and seek a closer cooperation with migrant origin countries, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday.
Spain takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency on July 1.
The deal aims to set a coordinated response to handling irregular arrivals of asylum-seekers and migrants, and would see each EU country assigned a share of the 30,000 people overall the bloc is expected to accommodate in its joint migration system at any given time.
“I hope that before the end of the semester we can definitely seal this pact on migration and asylum that is so important for the member states,” Sanchez told a news conference held in Madrid.
A majority of the 27 EU member countries have already agreed on a deal despite the opposition of countries such as Poland and Hungary.
Spain now intends to lead the negotiations on behalf of the member states with the European Parliament to get the deal passed.
Sanchez said a recent shipwreck off the coast of Greece made the deal more necessary.
Sanchez also said his government will push, during its six-month presidency, for common minimum corporate tax rates in all EU countries, for making the EU banking union a reality and for the ratification of a trade deal between the bloc and Mercosur, a trade association comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
(Reporting by Belén Carreño; Writing by Emma Pinedo and Inti Landauro; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Hugh Lawson)
