Brussels, 18/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - Several associations working with asylum seekers are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Dublin Regulation (EU Regulation 343/2003) on Monday 18 February, a regulation that states that only one member state is responsible for assessing an asylum-seeker's request for asylum and that lays down criteria for deciding which country that should be - the first one the asylum-seeker enters (illegally of course). The European Council of Refugees and Exiled People (ECRE), the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), a Hungarian human rights organisation, and the Cosi Refugees Forum say that there is precious little to celebrate, drawing attention in a joint press release to the fact that the system still violates refugees' rights. The three bodies started a comparative study on 18 February into the asylum systems in eleven member states (http://www.dublin-project.eu ), giving details of the number of applications, the number of successful and unsuccessful applicants and the number of people sent to other countries or sent back to their country of origin under the Dublin Regulation.
The three associations criticise the sometimes inhumane treatment of people under the Dublin Regulation, with the separation of families, the detention of asylum-seekers in closed centres and failure in certain cases to provide protection. ECRE, HHC and Cosi Refugees Forum say the new Dublin Regulation approved at the end of November by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers makes improvements, but it is the very idea behind the Dublin Regulation that needs changing. (SP/transl.fl)