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Plan to speed up parts of EU migration pact

The European Commission has announced plans to speed up the implementation of some parts of an agreement on asylum and migration due to come into effect next year.

The EU Asylum and Migration Pact is aimed at harmonising and improving the management of migration across the EU.

The commission is proposing to apply two of the deal’s rules before it enters into force in June next year:

• Member states can apply the border procedure or an accelerated procedure to people coming from countries where, on average, 20% or fewer applicants are granted international protection in the EU, and
• Safe third countries and safe countries of origin can be designated with exceptions, giving member states greater flexibility by excluding specific regions or clearly identifiable categories of individuals.

The border procedure is a type of accelerated asylum procedure that mainly applies to nationals of countries with low recognition rates for international protection, and to those who mislead the authorities or pose a threat to national security.

‘Safe’ countries of origin

The EU body also plans to set up the first EU list of safe countries of origin.

Some member states already have national lists of safe countries, but the commission says that an EU list will support “a more uniform application of the concept”.

It adds that the measure means that EU members can process asylum claims of nationals from countries on the list in an accelerated procedure, on the basis that their claims are unlikely to be successful.

The initial list will cover Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco, and Tunisia, while the commission is also proposing that all EU candidate countries should be designated ‘safe’.

Backlogs

The proposals are subject to agreement by the EU Council and European Parliament.

“Many member states are facing a significant backlog of asylum applications, so anything we can do now to support faster asylum decisions is essential,” says Magnus Brunner (Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration).

“The pact provisions on recognition rates and applying the ‘safe country of origin’ concept can help member states deal with claims more quickly, whilst always ensuring that every asylum claim still receives an individual assessment and is subject to the scrutiny of national courts,” he added.