Brussels, 07/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - The options set out by Commissioners Frans Timmermans and Dimitris Avramopoulos on Wednesday 6 April (see EUROPE 11526) for reforming the Dublin Regulation have received a mixed reception. The Greek Prime Minister welcomed this “positive” step, which he saw as a move in the right direction, whereas some of the political leaders of the countries in the east of the EU, fiercely opposed to any quota system, restated their red lines.
One such was Czech Secretary of State for European Affairs Tomas Prouza. He wondered how long the Commission would continue to push for quotas and he suggested it should, on the contrary, focus on “things that can help”. The Commission proposed two main options for the reform of the Dublin mechanism which determines which state is responsible for processing asylum requests and which has often led to greater strain being placed on some countries like Greece and Italy, because of their geographical location or, like Germany, because of the attraction they exert. The first of the two options provides for a corrective mechanism leading to a relocation system and the second for directly allocating asylum seekers to member states using a distribution formula.
In the view of the ECR Group, the corrective mechanism option is acceptable since this mechanism does not fundamentally alter the system or how the state responsible is determined. It sees the compulsory sharing arrangement, however, as not being viable and it will not see the light of day, predicted Timothy Kirkhope (UK). He feels that there is no need to reinvent the wheel: the focus, he said, should be on making existing rules work properly and this means efficient management of the external borders. Governments must, Kirkhope said, now demonstrate that improved implementation of the existing rules is the only option possible.
The Greens/EFA Group says that it is clear that the European asylum request system “is not fit for the task and must be replaced. There needs to be a permanent and fair system for relocating refugees across EU member states, based on solidarity”. It says it is “essential that the preferences and needs of refugees are taken into account, notably as regards language knowledge and where they already have family contacts. This is essential for facilitating integration”. It regrets that the Commission has failed to address this in its proposal.
The chair of the Parliament civil liberties (LIBE) committee, Claude Moraes (S&D, UK), said it is very important that the EU put solidarity and sharing of responsibility among member states at the heart of the European asylum system. Cecilia Wikström (ALDE, Sweden) argued that the criterion of first country of entry should be dropped from the Dublin regulation and replaced by a fair mechanism among the member states based on the wealth of the country, population and capacity for receiving asylum seekers. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)