Parliament adopted the amended resolution by 344 votes to 237 , with 66 abstentions. The winning coalition was led by EPP, S&D and Renew, joined by the Greens/EFA; PfE, ESN and most of ECR voted against, while the remainder of ECR and a substantial share of EPP abstained. As a non-legislative own-initiative report, the text carries no direct legal force, but it represents Parliament's formal political position on development cooperation and migration and is intended to press the Commission to act on the priorities it sets out. The substantive votes revealed a consistent cleavage over how far conditionality and restrictive framing should go. The political centre — EPP, S&D and Renew — backed a version of the text that links development cooperation to migration management but retains language on legal pathways and the EU Pact's whole-of-route approach. Amendments put forward by the right (ECR and PfE) that would have gone further — making aid strictly conditional on curbing mass migration and returns (Am 9, Am 12), reframing migration primarily as a cost and brain drain (Am 7 / vote 5075), condemning NGO engagement in anti-smuggling language (Am 8), and rejecting development cooperation as a tool for EU labour recruitment (Am 11 / vote 5069) — were each rejected by margins of 166 to 207 votes. Two amendments did carry with cross-aisle support. The resolution retains language on legal pathways and private-sector involvement in development (vote 5065, carried by 244 votes). A new paragraph calling on the Commission and Member States to strengthen capacity to prevent and respond to the instrumentalisation of migrants was added (Am 4, carried by 208 votes) with EPP, ECR, ESN, PfE and a share of Renew in favour, against S&D and the left. A more narrowly carried addition (vote 5067, by 88 votes) kept text warning that strict border controls without legal alternatives can shift migration routes and increase exposure to smuggling — backed by S&D, Greens/EFA, The Left and Renew, while EPP largely abstained and PfE voted against. Several EPP national delegations — including Partido Popular (Spain) and Platforma Obywatelska (Poland) — broke from their group's majority on the final vote.
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