EU slammed for new list of safe countries for refugee return |
By Nawab Khan in Brussels
European Commission Human rights organisations have slammed a plan announced by the European Commission to send back asylum seekers from seven countries in order to stem the flow of refugees to the 27-member European bloc. The list includes India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Kosovo, Colombia, Morocco and Tunisia.
The plan must now be endorsed by the EU`s 27 member states and the European Parliament before it can come into force.
The EU`s executive body has on 16 April 2025 declared seven countries as “safe third countries” meaning that asylum seekers from these countries would be safe to be returned to their home countries and will not face any human rights abuses by local authorities.
For the countries deemed “safe”, means that their nationals do not automatically qualify as refugees. EU wants to speed up asylum applications from nationals of the seven countries and hasten their repatriation.
These applicants will get a decision within three months, rather than the current six months period.
EU figures show 8,975 Indians filed for asylum applications across the EU in 2023. This figure fell to 8,676 in 2024. A total of 40,385 citizens from Bangladesh applied for asylum in the year 2023, which increased to 42,236 in 2024. The EU figures did not mention the grounds for those seeking asylum from India or Bangladesh.
Total Asian asylum seekers were 363,100 in the EU in 2024.
First-time asylum seekers were 912,000 from third countries in 2024, down by 13% compared with 2023.
Hussein Baoumi of Amnesty International in Brussels feels the concept of safe countries in asylum procedures “may lead to discrimination among refugees based on their country of nationality and detract from an individualized assessment.”
``The EU must ensure that groups at specific risk in each country, for example political opponents, LGBTI individuals, journalists and human rights defenders are clarified, while also enhancing engagement with listed countries to address human rights concerns,`` he added.
The European Commission clarified that the new list would complement EU member countries` national lists of safe countries and ``support a more uniform application of the concept, which allows Member States to process asylum claims of nationals from countries on the list in an accelerated procedure, on the basis that their claims are unlikely to be successful``.
Upsurge in illegal migrants has put the European Union under pressure to move quickly to deport them.
Civil society organizations have asked EU to reconsider the decision and remove Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia from their lists of “safe countries of origin” and “safe third countries” accusing them of being human rights violators.
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