While the EU Home Affairs Ministers will meet on 2 and 3 December in Brussels to discuss the migration situation, the German government has circulated a document in which it sets out, in a slightly more precise manner, its vision of the reform of the Dublin Regulation which governs responsibilities in the field of asylum.
A reform that German Minister Horst Seehofer, at the last G6 in Munich, hoped to see put in place by the German EU Council Presidency in mid-2020 (see EUROPE 12359/8).
This document sets out the views already put forward by the Minister at the G6, which include, inter alia, this notion of verification at the external border of a migrant's right to enter the EU to seek protection. The document also insists on the German requirement not to touch the duration of a Member State's responsibility towards an asylum seeker, whereas countries such as Italy and Greece have sought in recent years to reduce this duration of responsibility as much as possible.
The document again shows that the current system has "failed": the principle that the country of first entry should be responsible for examining the application for international protection, a secondary anti-movement system, is ineffective in practice and the lack of elements of solidarity only exacerbates these imbalances. The Dublin Regulation on the asylum system is still ineffective when it creates huge administrative burdens and considerably slows down the processing of applications.
In the reform of the common asylum system, "three key elements are inseparable", according to Berlin: - the initial assessment of asylum applications at external borders; - a new regime to determine which Member State is responsible for examining an application that distributes the burden fairly among all Member States; - the joint implementation of this regime with effective measures to stop secondary movements of migrants within the EU.
On the first point, it would be a matter of quickly determining whether a person has the right to enter European territory to seek asylum. EU agencies would help to carry out this preliminary examination and unsuccessful candidates would be handled by Frontex, in particular, in charge of returns via accelerated procedures. It should also be easier to refuse entry to people from safe non-Member States, the note also suggests.
These initial assessments are set, in any case, to be completed within a few weeks.
A "fair share" per Member State and not quotas
Asylum seekers would therefore only be allowed to enter the EU after passing the initial assessment. Before entering the EU, the new European Asylum Agency would determine which Member State is responsible for examining the asylum application and the final decision, "the most important principle of the new liability regime being that the burden associated with examining applications are shared equitably between all Member States".
This objective could be achieved by determining the "fair share" of each Member State according to population size and economic weight (GDP) (the term "quotas" never appears). Liability would therefore no longer be based on the principles of the Member State of first entry and the Member State where the application was lodged.
In calculating this "fair share", it would also be taken into account certain circumstances specific to each case, such as family relationships or factors that might be relevant in the event of return, such as Member States' return partnerships with non-Member States (if the request is ultimately refused).
The EURODAC register would then only register the one Member State responsible based on these new criteria.
However, according to Berlin, the Member State designated as responsible must remain so at all times. "It is unacceptable that within the EU, the responsibility for examining an asylum application should be reviewed several times or that it should change responsibility. The principle ‘once responsible, always responsible’” must always apply, with a few rare exceptions, Berlin insists. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)