{"id":15939,"date":"2023-06-14T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/?p=15939"},"modified":"2024-10-21T14:20:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T11:20:53","slug":"a-dire-threat-to-the-right-to-asylum-eu-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/a-dire-threat-to-the-right-to-asylum-eu-council\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU Council quagmire of procedures is a dire threat to the right to asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The EU Council quagmire of procedures is a dire threat to the right to asylum<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Athens, 15 June 2023: <\/b>The Council of the European Union mandate on the proposed Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR) and Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) sets impermissible restrictions on refugees\u2019 access to asylum procedures in Europe<\/b>.<\/p>

The agreement reached by EU Member States last Thursday 8 June paves the way for immediate negotiations (\u201ctrilogues\u201d) with the European Parliament, whose positions on the proposals were adopted in March 2023. Their aim is to conclude the reform<\/span><\/a> of the European legal framework on asylum, pending since 2016.<\/p>

The Council mandate exacerbates inequalities between EU countries in refugee protection through mandatory border procedures, a stronger \u201cfirst country of entry\u201d responsibility criterion and extremely complex procedures<\/b> to essentially codify the status quo as solidarity forms. It also poses undue restrictions on access to international protection procedures <\/b>through a range of provisions which infringe the fundamental right to asylum.<\/p>

The APR mandate restricts the possibility to \u201cmake\u201d an asylum claim<\/b>, since it requires refugees to express their intention to receive protection in person before designated national authorities. People who have booked a registration appointment will therefore not be considered as \u201casylum seekers\u201d until the date of their appearance in person, as put forward by the Greek government in direct contradiction of case law of domestic courts<\/span><\/a> and of the Court of Justice of the European Union<\/span><\/a> (CJEU). Claims made more than seven working days after a previous return decision shall be dismissed as inadmissible if no new grounds have arisen in the meantime. This has particularly dire consequences for people seeking asylum in Greece, where new arrivals are systematically issued<\/span><\/a> deportation or return orders by police authorities before their asylum applications are registered.<\/p>

In addition, the Council has approved a broader definition of \u201csafe third country\u201d as a ground for dismissing asylum claims without an examination on substance<\/b>, supported<\/span><\/a> by Greece. The proposed concept creates direct risks of further expansion of the arbitrary practice<\/span><\/a> followed by Greece over the past seven years following the \u201ctoxic\u201d EU-Turkey deal. The Council allows for designation as \u201csafe third countries\u201d of states that persecute their own citizens and do not offer legal status and full rights to refugees<\/b>. It repeals the obligation on states to lay down methodology rules for the use of the concept contrary to CJEU case law<\/span><\/a> and presumes the safety of third countries to be met by their mere assurance that migrants will be treated \u201cin accordance with relevant international standards\u201d under agreements with the EU.<\/p>

The start of \u201ctrilogues\u201d between EU co-legislators marks a pressing need to resist the dismantling of the Common European Asylum System proposed by the Council and to safeguard fair and effective asylum procedures that guarantee real access to protection for those in need<\/b>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can access an overview of the main changes proposed by the Council mandate here<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Council of the European Union sets impermissible restrictions on refugees\u2019 access to asylum procedures in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[318,207,6,5,274,137],"tags":[294,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-15939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-common-european-asylum-system","8":"category-other-topics","9":"category-press-releases","10":"category-publications","11":"category-quality-of-the-asylum-procedure","12":"category-topics","13":"tag-2023-2","14":"tag-featured"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15939"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15958,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939\/revisions\/15958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}