In Marrakech, Morocco on Monday, 164 countries adopted the historic Global Compact for Migration, a blueprint for helping the 258 million migrants worldwide to safely reach Europe and countries that welcome mass migration.

The historic, non-binding global pact seeking to better manage migration was approved by delegates from 164 nations following 18 months of debate and negotiation. The first ever international deal on the migration crisis was signed on Monday by a majority of UN states, despite vociferous objections led by the United States.

The UN’s global compact on orderly and regular migration, signed in Marrakech, is aimed at coordinating action on migration around the world and accepting it as a basic human right.

The global pact lays out 23 objectives to open up legal migration and manage the influx as the number of people on the move worldwide has increased to over 250 million, or just over three percent of the world’s population.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, who welcomed hundreds of thousand of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan into her country, received a standing ovation on Monday after an impassioned speech in which she said the UN was founded after the second world war and spoke of the “incredible suffering on humankind” wrought by the Nazi regime.

However, the criticism of 23 objectives outlined in the document has been raised in a number of countries, some of which stayed away from the conference.

It was rejected by President Donald Trump a year ago. Since then Austria, which holds the EU presidency, has pulled out of the process, along with Australia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Slovakia and the Dominican Republic.

Bulgaria, Estonia, Israel, Slovenia and Switzerland are still undecided on whether to agree to the new pact.

Meanwhile,

a planned march against the UN Migration Pact in Brussels has been barred by the city’s mayor and the region’s Prime Minister, Belgian newspaper HLN reports.

The march, which was organised by several patriotic groups and nationalist political party Vlaams Belang was planned on Sunday.

On social media around 45,000 people showed their interest in the march against the UN pact, that makes migration a human right.

Officials in Brussels fear the manifestation could spread to other parts of the city and therefore the mayor Phillippe Close made the decision to prohibit it.

“We thought the decision was made because of the terror attack in Strasbourg on the Christmas market, but the problem doesn’t seem to be the safety of the protesters, but their right to unite and of freedom of speech,” march organiser Filip Brusselsmans says.

He added that the prohibition makes him think of “totalitarian regimes”.

Source:  theguardian.com    voiceofeurope.com