Asylum: EP and Council reach a deal to update safe third country rules

Parliament and Council negotiators have reached a political agreement on updates to the 2024 Asylum Law regarding the conditions for applying the rules on safe third countries. On Thursday the negotiating team of the Civil Liberties Committee informally agreed with the Council new rules under which member states may decide that a non-EU country is a safe third country (STC) with respect to an asylum applicant who is not a national of that country, and may therefore declare their application inadmissible. The deal builds on a proposal by the Commission to update this provision in the Asylum Procedure Regulation.

The new rules would allow EU countries to apply the STC concept in individual cases where one of these three conditions is met:

• there is a connection between the applicant and a third country; this connection may be considered established if members of the applicant’s family are present in the third country concerned, if the applicant stayed there previously, or if there are linguistic, cultural or similar links.
• applicants have transited through a third country on the way to the Union, where they could have requested effective
• where an agreement or arrangement exists with a third country at a bilateral,multilateral or Union level for the admission of asylum seekers.

Upon conclusion of an agreement or arrangement with a third country, EU countries should have to inform the Commission and other member states before they are provisionally applied, or enter into force, whichever is the earliest. The European Parliament should also be informed about agreements or arrangements at EU level related to the safe third country concept.

Unaccompanied minors will be exempt from the application of safe third country rules based on agreements and arrangements with third countries. In security cases, rules related to unaccompanied minors will apply as agreed in the Asylum Procedure Regulation, including provisions related to accelerated and border procedures. In line with the Commission proposal applicants should not have an automatic right to remain in the member state where they requested asylum while an appeal to an inadmissibility decision is resolved.

Source: European Parliament