The various political groups in the European Parliament have appointed their lead and shadow rapporteurs on the issues of ‘safe countries of origin’ (SCOs) and ‘safe third countries’ (STCs), Agence Europe learned on Tuesday 2 September.
The Italian member of Giorgia Meloni’s party, Alessandro Ciriani (ECR), will be the main rapporteur for the report on ‘safe countries of origin’ and the first common list proposed by the Commission in April (see EUROPE 13623/1).
The aim of this amendment to the Asylum Procedures Regulation is to facilitate the processing of asylum applications lodged by nationals of so-called ‘safe’ countries of origin who have no real need for protection in the EU. This first list includes the countries officially applying to join the EU, along with seven other countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, India, Bangladesh, Colombia and Kosovo).
The SCO dossier was entrusted to the ECR group following a tacit agreement reached at the beginning of July with the EPP (see EUROPE 13673/17). This is an important issue for the Italian leader, who is struggling to put in place her arrangement with Albania, which has been rejected on several occasions by the courts and by the EU Court of Justice for incorrectly applying the concept of ‘safe countries of origin’.
The shadow rapporteurs on this dossier include Tomas Tobé (Swedish) for the EPP, Cecilia Strada (Italian) for the S&D, Fabienne Keller (French) for Renew Europe and Damien Carême (French) for The Left. Erik Marquardt (German) will be rapporteur for the Greens/EFA. The first meeting will take place on Wednesday 3 September.
The EPP, for its part, has taken up the dossier on ‘safe third countries of origin’ (see EUROPE 13644/9), which aims to facilitate the transfer of asylum seekers in the EU whose case appears too weak to third countries of which they are not nationals.
Germany’s Lena Düpont will be rapporteur. The shadow rapporteurs are Cecilia Strada for the S&D, Fabienne Keller for Renew Europe and Erik Marquardt for the Greens/EFA. For the ECR, it will be Assita Kanko (Belgian) and Ilaria Salis (Italian) for The Left.
The EU Council will resume work on the common list of ‘safe countries of origin’ on 8 September, with a new compromise from the Danish Presidency of the EU Council.
Italy has also requested that a discussion point be added to the working group to discuss the concept of ‘safe third country’ within the Council of Europe. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)