Strasbourg, 21/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 20 January, Timothy Kirkhope MEP (ECR, United Kingdom) proposed a number of initiatives to revise the Dublin regulation. The Commission is expected to begin its approach in March and Kirkhope called on the Commission not to change this mechanism entirely.
The MEP said that the Dublin revision should be used to help improve the application of the current rules in place and should not be done to “reinvent the wheel”.
Timothy Kirkhope said that the system ought to continue to be based on the same principle of the “first country of entry” remaining responsible for the asylum request but that they should also learn from the mistakes inherent in the European emergency relocation system, which has not worked. He said that the system should therefore be used to improve clarification of who is responsible and subsequently avoid movements of asylum seekers between member states. The MEP writes that if a state, however, has been “suspended”, member states should send asylum seekers to the operational hotspot closest to the first point of entry of these asylum seekers.
The European Commission should ensure that transfers are correctly organised and that asylum candidates are well treated and appropriately registered when they arrive. Kirkhope said that the future Dublin system should remain an instrument that is separate to the different asylum seeker relocation mechanisms, which are based on a distribution key.
He added that an emergency relocation mechanism could exist but that the countries should have the possibility of an alternative to participating in the UN High Commission for Refugees' (UNHCR) resettlement programmes. He also said that the future Dublin system should not contain automatic distribution for asylum seekers between member states.
The British MEP said that every country that wanted asylum seeker transfers to be suspended towards their territory should be the subject to a Commission assessment and that if they suspend the returns, they should also be suspended from Schengen or agree to EU assistance to protect their borders.
Kirkhope does not want the current rules on family recruitment to be amended or extended either. He concludes that any complete overhaul of Dublin, which is in the throes of crisis, is not an effective approach. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)