Dec. 8 (UPI) — The European Union will now be able to agree to deals to deport asylum-seekers to third countries that it deems safe through bilateral agreements, the European Council announced Monday.
The new regulation revised the safe third-country concept and will expand the circumstances under which an asylum application can be rejected as inadmissible. The Council also completed a piece of the 2024 Migration and Asylum Pact, by agreeing on the first EU list of safe countries of origin, which will allow member states to deal with applications for international protection faster.
EU member states will be able to return unauthorized migrants to third countries that are unrelated to their origin as long as there are bilateral agreements in place. The third countries can be places of transit or places where a person is expected to stay.
This will help the member states speed up deportations, but it could also endanger people’s lives because most would have no connection to the countries.
“We have a very high influx of irregular migrants, and our European countries are under pressure. Thousands are drowning in the Mediterranean Sea or are abused along the migratory routes, while human smugglers earn fortunes. … I am happy that we — member states — have agreed on a general approach to the revision of the ‘safe third country’ concept, which allows member states to make agreements with safe third countries on asylum processing outside Europe,” said Rasmus Stoklund, Danish minister for Immigration and Integration, in a statement.
Asylum seekers can now have their applications reviewed in the third country instead of having to travel to the country where they seek asylum, which would save the migrant from a potentially treacherous trip.
Those who are appealing a rejection would no longer have an automatic right to stay in the EU while appealing, though they would still have the right to request a court hearing, a press release said.
Safe countries of origin are, according to the EU: Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisia.
The law must be approved by the European Parliament. It’s part of an effort to make it more difficult for undocumented migrants to enter EU countries.
Some civil society organizations have protested the effort, calling it an inhumane practice that will increase abuses and human rights violations of migrants.
In a joint statement released in July 2024, a group of more than 100 organizations said: “The outsourcing of asylum processing and refugee protection sends a dangerous signal to countries in the global South on E.U. countries’ refusal to uphold their responsibilities toward refugees and do their fair share. Far from showing international solidarity, the EU is attempting to further push its responsibilities onto countries who already host the majority of refugees with often far fewer resources — a policy that is not necessarily conducive to building global influence, the European Commission’s stated aim.”
