Brussels, 09/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - Despite Sweden setting an example last week by its decision to grant permanent residence permits to all Syrian refugees already living in the country, the European Council of Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) has produced a new study in which it denounces the “obstacle course” asylum seekers have to face in Europe which leads to the “unfair” treatment they receive.
In its study published on Friday 6 September, the ECRE points out that “there is still a long way to go in the establishment of a fair and efficient Common European Asylum System” despite more than 12 years of harmonising national asylum policies and the adoption of the asylum package in June 2013. The research carried out by the ECRE analyses asylum systems in 14 EU member states (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom) illustrates “huge differences as regards the procedural rules and safeguards for asylum seekers, their access to accommodation and employment, and the use of detention”. The NGO highlights the fact that cuts to legal aid are reducing the number of legal representatives available to provide assistance to asylum seekers and refugees and that effective access to quality legal assistance is least available where it is most needed, such as in accelerated procedures, at the border or in detention. ECRE says that asylum seekers' right to lodge an appeal against a negative first instance asylum decision is, in some of member states, undermined in practice as lawyers are not allowed reasonable time to properly prepare the appeal. For instance, “lawyers” of asylum seekers detained in the UK “only have two working days to challenge a negative asylum decision”.
The report also highlights the varying state practices with regard to detention. While some EU member states, such as Germany and Italy, rarely detain asylum seekers, more than 13,000 asylum seekers were detained in the UK in 2012 and, according to the ECRE, “Malta continues to detain for months the vast majority of asylum seekers arriving in the island, in overcrowded military barracks”. The ECRE hopes that the transposition into national law of the new recast asylum legislation adopted by the EU in June (the new Dublin regulation, the reception, procedures, and qualifications directives and the Eurodac database) will help member states rectify their shortcomings in this area. (SP/transl.fl)