On Wednesday 26 November, the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union received fairly clear support from the Member States for the draft compromises on the revision of the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR) and the concepts of ‘safe countries of origin’ (SCO), including a list of countries, and ‘safe third countries’ (STC).
Denmark presented two draft political agreements (‘general approach’), identical to the latest compromises (see EUROPE 13756/19).
As a reminder, the SCO concept is a proposal designed primarily for Italy, which has suffered setbacks over its protocol with Albania.
Under this concept, Member States may refuse a detailed examination of an asylum application on their territory if the person concerned is a national of a country where his or her life is not in danger or where he or she is not at risk. A joint EU list has been proposed for this purpose (Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, India, Bangladesh, Colombia and Kosovo, not forgetting the official EU candidate countries).
The revision of the STC concept makes it optional for a connection criterion to be taken into account when returning a person whose asylum application has been rejected in the EU to a third country from which he or she does not originate, but which could also offer equivalent protection, as this country must always be considered ‘safe’.
While the presidency envisages a political agreement on these two texts on 8 December at the Home Affairs Council, work seems to have progressed well and, according to one source, Denmark is heading, barring any surprises, towards two general approaches on 8 December.
According to another source, the ‘STC’ text, the most controversial according to some, even received a very large majority on Wednesday, with only a handful of countries having difficulties with it, citing, among other things, a problem of legality.
According to our information, Spain, Portugal, France and Greece, for various reasons, are the countries with either opposition in principle, such as Spain which does not agree with the direction of current European migration policy, or opposition of a constitutional or other technical nature.
One delegation also expressed doubts about the legality of the text, which provides that the STC concept can also be applied for third countries with which only an ‘arrangement’ - and not a ‘formal agreement’ - has been concluded. The concern is to ensure that asylum seekers who cannot be cared for in the EU will have secure access to the asylum procedure and related rights in this third country.
The Council’s legal department has also reportedly given its opinion on this point. However, others believe that this question regarding legality is unfounded, as the Commission itself proposed, in its text of 20 May, that these provisions with the third countries concerned could take the form of an agreement or arrangement. According to these sources, what will count will be the content and, just like a legally binding agreement, no arrangement will be able to contravene international or European standards in terms of fundamental rights.
At the European Parliament, the two texts tabled by the ECR and EPP rapporteurs, Alessandro Ciriani (Italian) and Lena Düpont (German), should receive a so-called ‘Venezuela’ majority in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (see EUROPE 13759/15). This possibility is already worrying some observers, who are highly critical of a possible precedent for legislation on people and migration, with further consequences for Ursula von der Leyen’s so-called ‘pro-European’ majority in the European Parliament. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)