On Wednesday 3 September, the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU presented a new compromise document on the revision of the concept of ‘safe country of origin’ and the establishment of the first-ever common list of ‘safe countries of origin’.
The Member States will discuss this in the Asylum Working Party on Monday 8 September. This text takes account of the various comments made since the first Polish compromise (see EUROPE 13654/6) and insists, among other things, on notification procedures in cases where a third country is no longer considered a ‘safe country of origin’. It also covers the status of official EU candidate countries and clarifies the application of the ‘safe country’ concept to countries with indiscriminate violence on their territory.
As a reminder, the creation of a common list of ‘safe countries of origin’, which includes the official EU candidate countries and, in an annex, Egypt, Bangladesh, India, Colombia, Tunisia, Morocco and Kosovo, should enable Member States to speed up the processing of asylum applications from nationals of these countries.
In terms of amendments, the compromise includes legal clarifications, in particular on the exclusion of persons who cannot be covered by the definition of ‘safe countries of origin’ and some rewording of paragraphs.
It brings the text closer to the concept of ‘safe country of origin’ as defined in the 2024 ‘Asylum Procedures’ Regulation and its Article 61, explains a source. In particular, Regulation 2024/1348 introduces the possibility of designating a third country as a ‘safe country of origin’, with exceptions for specific parts of its territory or clearly identifiable categories of persons.
The compromise makes it clear that the fact that a third country is considered to be a ‘safe country of origin’, whether at EU or national level, does not constitute an absolute guarantee of safety for its nationals, even those who do not belong to a category of persons benefiting from an exception when designating the country as a ‘safe country of origin’, and “therefore does not dispense with the need to conduct an individual examination of the application for international protection”.
“Where the conditions set out in Article 61 are no longer met in relation to specific parts of the country’s territory or clearly identifiable categories of persons in the country, the Commission shall, by amending this Regulation through a delegated act (...), partially suspend the designation of the third country as a safe country of origin at Union level for that part or category of persons”, thus the compromise is reworded.
“The partial suspension shall apply for a period [of xx months / to be determined by the Commission] and may be extended by means of another delegated act where the circumstances that led to the partial suspension persist at the end of the period of validity of the delegated act”.
With regard to the countries applying for EU membership, the Presidency explains that it has had difficulties with those experiencing armed conflict or whose accession discussions with the EU have been frozen.
“It may be disproportionate to remove the designation of an EU candidate country completely (as a ‘safe country of origin’) where an armed conflict is circumscribed to a specific geographical area and, as a consequence, nationals of that country have access to protection in another part of the country”.
“A few Member States have also suggested adding an additional exception to the general designation of EU candidate countries as safe countries of origin, covering cases where EU accession negotiations have been effectively paused for a significant length of time. Indeed, if EU candidate countries are presumed safe on account of candidate status, a logical legal consequence of this would seemingly be that such a presumption of safety no longer holds water where accession negotiations have been suspended. However, for greater legal certainty and ease of implementation, the Presidency proposes to limit the scope of this additional exception to those situations where negotiations have been formally suspended by the Council (...). This would also avoid the risk of a ‘revolving door’ between applicability and non-applicability of the designation of the country concerned”.
The Presidency considered as well, for the sake of ease and legal certainty, that EU candidate countries should not be listed in the annex, which currently includes seven countries.
A recital is also added, clarifying that the proposal does not imply that other third countries could not be included in the scope of the ‘safe country of origin’ concept and the EU common list in the future.
Link to the document: https://aeur.eu/f/i8v (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)