Brussels, 25/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - EU ministers responsible for home affairs meeting in Luxembourg on 25 October, adopted new rules on the reception conditions for asylum seekers in the EU. This compromise had already been validated on 19 September by the European Parliament. According to this new directive, the Council will still need to formally adopt reception conditions for asylum seeker candidates, which will be harmonised throughout the EU, irrespective of the member state in which the application has been made. The directive covers a wide variety of different aspects, from labour market access, to detention and the right to free legal aid in appeal procedures.
The Council press release indicates that the detention of applicants for international protection is only possible on the basis of an individual assessment, which has to show that other less coercive alternative measures cannot be applied effectively. On 19 September, the European Parliament explained that an applicant for international protection can only be detained on the basis of a precise list of reasons: to verify the identity of the asylum seeker, for example; to verify the different elements on which the candidate bases his application for asylum; to protect national security and public order or in the context of a transfer from one member state to another under the Dublin II Regulation. In general, asylum seekers will be placed in specific reception facilities. If this is not possible, the Council explains that prison facilities can be used, but only on the condition that applicants are kept separate from criminals. The directive also stipulates that non-accompanied minors can only be placed in detention in exceptional circumstances and never in a prison facility, which is a criticism that NGOs had previously made.
On the question of labour market access, European negotiators also agreed that this access would be possible for asylum seekers after a period of nine months following the submission of the demand for asylum and not twelve months, as is currently the case.
Ireland, the United Kingdom and Denmark are not party to this text. It is part of the “Asylum Package” that the EU27 agreed to validate before the end of 2012. The package includes directives on fingerprint databases for asylum seekers (Eurodac), the Dublin II Regulation, the directive on asylum procedures and what criteria are required to obtain international protection. The Council and the Parliament had already reached an agreement at the beginning of this year on the question of these criteria but three other proposals are still being discussed. (SP/transl.fl)