Brussels, 25/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - According to a press release from the ECRE on Tuesday 25 September, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles has called on member states to stop transferring asylum seekers from Serbia to Hungary. The association has also criticised the Hungarian authorities of systematically refusing to examine dossiers of candidates transited through Serbia. The ECRE explained that the Hungarian authorities' basic premise is that Serbia should be able to provide international attention to these candidates, which the ECRE refutes. According to data provided by the ECRE, since 2008, Serbia has not granted refugee status to anyone and has only granted subsidiary protection in five cases. The ECRE also points out that at the beginning of September, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) stated that Serbia should not be considered a safe country for asylum seekers and member states should therefore stop sending asylum seekers there.
The ECRE also explains that asylum seekers whose dossiers had been rejected are in danger of being sent to Greece whose asylum system was condemned in January 2011 by the European Court of Human Rights or to Macedonia (FYROM), which does not have appropriate conditions for taking in asylum seekers. In this new study, the ECRE again expresses criticism of the Dublin 2 regulation, which allows member states to transfer asylum seekers to another member state through which the interested party has perhaps entered EU territory. The regulation will soon be amended, due to an agreement between the EP and Council, but the principle of transfers will be maintained. Last week, just before the civil liberties committee vote at the EP, the rapporteur in charge of this dossier, Cecilia Wikström (ALDE, Sweden), highlighted current problems in Italy. Some countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, have decided to halt transfers of asylum seekers to Italy, although other countries like France, have decided to continue with transfers, explained the MEP. (SP/trans/fl)