Brussels, 05/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission said on Tuesday evening 4 November that it would carefully study the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered earlier that same day (see EUROPE 11190) calling on Switzerland not to return a family of Afghan asylum seekers to Italy because of doubts over whether the applicants would be looked after in a manner adapted to the age of the children and that the family would be kept together.
The Commission will assess the judgment as well as “its possible implications for the functioning of the asylum system in Italy and the EU”. However, the Commission notes, it is primarily for member states to draw conclusions from this judgment, and in particular to assess what implications it should have for the decisions which they may take in relation to “Dublin transfers”.
The Commission adds that it is closely following the asylum situation in Italy, in particular given the large number of arrivals by sea to Italy over the past year. However, it is not planning any decision on overhauling the Dublin regulation. At this moment, the Commission has still to adopt its work programme and, while Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos of Greece paved the way during his hearings for possible amendments of the Dublin system, a European source indicated that the ECHR ruling would not necessarily mean a review of the Dublin regulation and pointed out that “the situation in Italy does not appear to be catastrophic and is still better than the situation in Greece”. (SP)