Solidarity: Three Takeaways for the Year Ahead

Solidarity is a complex concept with deep roots in legal and social theory. At its core, it reflects a fundamental commitment: to act together in the face of shared adversity, helping others as a way of helping oneself. It is not blind altruism. Rather, it is compatible with pursuing one’s own interests while recognising that those interests can only be achieved through collective effort, and effort that requires pooling up resources and redistributing both the benefits and costs of cooperation.

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Solidarity: three takeaways for the year ahead

Solidarity is a complex concept with deep roots in legal and social theory. At its core, it reflects a fundamental commitment: to act together in the face of shared adversity, helping others as a way of helping oneself. It is not blind altruism. Rather, it is compatible with pursuing one’s own interests while recognising that those interests can only be achieved through collective effort, and effort that requires pooling up resources and redistributing both the benefits and costs of cooperation.

In the context of the EU asylum system, we can think of the principle of solidarity enshrined in the founding treaties as one of co-responsibility among Member States. It is about working together to sustain the institutions and governance mechanisms they have built together and—however unpopular that may sound—from which they all benefit. When internal or external shocks occur, maintaining these shared structures demands a willingness and readiness to redistribute costs. No matter how contested Schengen may be, for example, managing a Union with internal open borders continues to drive efforts in EU migration and asylum governance. Having a solidarity system in place therefore holds practical value, alongside its ethical and legal grounding.

However distant this principle may seem from current political realities—and arguably unhelpful for winning arguments or elections—solidarity continues to drive inter-institutional political bargain around migration and asylum. The closing months of 2025 have seen complex negotiations over the solidarity components of the New Pact reforms. Below are three takeaways from this process and their implications for the implementation phase ahead in June 2026.

 1. Claiming wins is easier than shouldering costs

Solidarity involves redistributing costs as well as benefits. This is difficult to accept at the interpersonal level and becomes highly sensitive and contentious within the EU and among its Member States.

The first Annual Asylum and Migration Report released by the European Commission in mid-November determines which Member States benefit from solidarity or may have reduced obligations for solidarity contributions under the Solidarity Pool. Given the high sensitivity of the subject, having a redistribution key in place is a step forward.

Expectedly, the picture that emerges from the Commission’s designation of categories as well the exemptions and reductions approved by the Member States at the JHA Council meeting this December is one where most member states are beneficiaries or entitled to reductions or exemptions from solidarity contributions based on their efforts in receiving and managing asylum applications, while only a few who are net contributors.[1]

This outlook suggests at least two things. First, the reforms set to enter into force in about six months address shortcomings in a redistributive system that has long struggled to function. Not only does this represent a challenge. The reforms may also run against similar issues. A key example is compliance with responsibility transfers. The Pact preserves the Dublin ‘first country of entry’ principle for responsibility allocation and transfers. While recent research shows that the redistributive effects of the Dublin system have been more positive than we tend to assume, it is precisely overall compliance with this system and its unfulfilled implementation that leaves doubt for the future.

Second, the categories and exemptions or reductions granted reflect the necessity to facilitate compliance with the new system by enabling a large group of states to claim political wins. As implementation moves forward, the question, however, is whether a system chasing wins and decreasing political costs for all can be successful in incentivising overall compliance with the system; or, conversely, whether this may create excessive reliance on reluctant (to say the least) net contributors and ultimately increase costs for everyone, including those of policy failure.

 2. Solidarity first? Or responsibility first

The path to solidarity is riddled with collective action problems. Trust, the reasonable expectation that partners will fulfil their commitments, is an essential precondition for solidarity. Beyond distributing potential benefits, the new system introduced by the Pact reforms will have to provide assurances that each Member State will do its part.

In the EU asylum system, one way to build trust involves making solidarity conditional on responsibility, particularly by ensuring that countries of first entry respect their obligations under the Dublin Regulation. The question however remains: who commits first?

With the Dublin system far from ‘dead’ and fully integrated into the new framework, Member States will likely continue to find it politically difficult to provide solidarity. Timing compounds the problem: Member States commit to solidarity contributions now, with the system entering into force in June, while guarantees on responsibility, secondary movements, and other Pact instruments will take much longer to materialise. For example, enhanced responsibility through expanded border procedures, another backbone of the reforms, will only show results much later.

This gap between immediate commitments and structural fixes will remain an obstacle to mutual trust and the success of this transition phase. While this challenge cannot be eliminated, recent analysis has shown that incorporating the concrete prospects of generalised non-compliance into internal risk assessment and implementation choices can be an important step forward.

     3. Lost in transition?

What solidarity commitments have we seen for this transition phase? During the JHA Council meeting on 8 December 2025, EU ministers set the reference numbers for the 2026 Solidarity Pool. This mechanism is designed to turn Member States’ pledges into action, whether through relocations, financial contributions, or operational support, once the Pact enters into force.

The Council’s endorsement of pool size and contributions marks progress, but Ministers agreed on 21,000 relocations and €420 million in financial contributions for 2026, about 30% lower than the minimum thresholds set in the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) (30,000 relocations and €600 million). Ministers justified this reduction by pointing to the shorter cycle starting only in June 2026. While this deviation from the AMMR may be transitional, it signals the political difficulty of getting the solidarity mechanism off the ground.

Spain, one of the four countries classified as “under migratory pressure” and set to benefit from the Solidarity Pool, reacted by warning that “the solidarity quota cannot become a haggling over numbers.” Yet, rather than a more principled approach to solidarity, more bargaining over contributions sems inevitable in the year ahead.

The mandatory yet flexible nature of this system was crucial to securing political agreement, but that same flexibility introduces additional risks and uncertainties. Member States have repeatedly signalled that relocations and financial transfers will remain the least favoured options for solidarity contributions. If offsets become the norm, solidarity risks being reduced to administrative assistance rather than substantive responsibility sharing. Ultimately, this may prove insufficient to incentivise full compliance with responsibility obligations.

This transitional arrangement, with reduced figures and likely heavy reliance on alternative contributions and offsets, is the price of political compromise to launch the reform. The risk is that this necessity spills into the next solidarity cycle, undermining the AMMR’s setup. In this delicate transition phase, managing exceptions and preventing non-compliance from becoming entrenched will be key to safeguarding the credibility of the entire reform.

From principle to practice

Radical change in EU migration and asylum solidarity remains unlikely, but small incremental progress is still possible.

Troubled as the process may be, the implementation of the Pact reforms presents a critical opportunity where solidarity can still find its place. Compromise, assurances, and other trust-building incentives are necessary to address limited commitments to solidarity, reluctance or refusal to comply, and other structural limits, particularly in a context marked by persistent tensions among Member States and the high politicisation of migration.

Recognising this necessity while staying the course on implementing the Pact, including its solidarity components, offers, if not optimism, at least a path forward for the year ahead.

[1] Net contributors would be Denmark (which opted out and is not bound by these rules); Hungary (which has clearly stated that it is not going to contribute), Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden (which has seen a decline in asylum applications after significant efforts around 2015).

(Photo credit: Logan Voss, Unsplash)