The European Commission (EC) presented on Wednesday a “first” list of countries of origin considered “safe”, to accelerate the processing of asylum requests presented in the European Union and above all, deny more easily the “potentially unfounded”.
First list of countries of origin “Seguros”
In addition to Morocco and Colombia, the initial list, which will be “dynamic” and may vary, includes Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Kosovo and Tunisia.
Brussels also considers that “candidate countries for adhesion to the EU comply, in principle, the criteria to be designated as safe countries” since, as part of their way to the twenty -seven, they are obliged to give guarantees that their institutions respect democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect and protect minorities.
However, the proposal provides three conditions for which a candidate country would be excluded from the list of “safe” countries: when it crosses a situation of war conflict (for example, Ukraine), when European sanctions are applied or when you have a recognition rate of asylum applicants in the EU that exceeds 20 %, (this last situation now does not occur for any of the candidates, according to community sources).
Currently, the Candidate countries to the EU are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Macedonia del Norte, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Kosovo is a potential candidate but his application for adhesion, presented in 2022, remains stagnant due to the lack of consensus among the 27 members for the refusal of five countries -chipre, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain- to recognize their independence.
With this proposal, the Commission seeks to help member states to process asylum requests “more quickly and efficiently”, through an accelerated or border procedure.
In practice, community sources indicated, the national authorities will analyze the request “on the basis of their merits” but “instead of doing so in the normal period of six months, there will be a three -month shortened period because it is assumed that the person comes from a safe country and it is unlikely to obtain asylum.”
In some cases, however, it could happen that the applicant has the right to obtain protection despite coming from those countries, the sources said.
Apart, Member States may have their own list with more countries.
The same sources said that some of the countries raised on Wednesday by Brussels could be excluded from the list during the processing of the proposal.
Acceleration to two elements of the migratory pact
On the other hand, the Community Executive proposed on Wednesday to accelerate the start -up of two elements of the European Pact of Migration and Asylum, whose entry into force is scheduled for June 2026.
In particular, Brussels stated that Member States can apply the border procedure or an accelerated procedure to migrants from countries where, on average, only 20 % or less of applicants obtain international protection in the EU.
In addition, it suggests being able to designate secure third countries and safe countries “with exceptions”, to give the Member States “more flexibility by excluding specific regions or categories of clearly identifiable people,” said the commission in a statement.
“The provisions of the Pact related to the recognition indices and the application of the concept of country of safe origin can help member states to process applications more quickly, always guaranteeing that each asylum application is subject to an individual evaluation and review by the national courts,” said the interior and migration commissioner, Magnus Brunner, in a statement.
After the presentation of the proposal, it corresponds to the European Parliament and the Council (EU countries) reach an agreement on it.
