Although overlooked in the academic debate around the New Pact on Migration and Asylum so far, an important element of the “package” is the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation addressing situations of crisis and force majeure in the field of migration and asylum (COM(2020)613), repealing Directive 2001/55/EC. This contribution aims at showing its main pitfalls, the enclosed risks for the safety and integrity of displaced persons in case of mass influx onto the territory of the Member States, and reflects on the use of the content of subsidiary protection as a temporary instrument of emergency as well as on the precariousness that may be misleadingly associated with such status of international protection.
Chiara Scissa is a Ph.D student in Law at Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies with a research project on environmental migration and she holds a Master's degree with honours in International Cooperation and the Protection of Human Rights at the University of Bologna, where she also worked as Project Assistant in EU-funded migration-related projects. Previously, she collaborated with the University Milano-Bicocca and the Global Campus of Human Rights towards the realization of projects and courses on the fundamental rights of migrants and asylum seekers in EU law and their vulnerability at sea.