Dispatches: EU ‘safe country’ lists threaten asylum seekers’ rights

European Union leaders would do well to take note of a July 24 Canadian Federal Court decision decision that Canada’s “safe country of origin” (SCO) list is unconstitutional because it is “discriminatory on its face” and serves to “marginalize, prejudge and stereotype” asylum seekers from countries the government has been designated as safe.

European Union member states have little agreement on sharing responsibilities for asylum seekers, but are compensating for the lack of consensus by finding new ways to limit their numbers overall. Although EU interior ministers meeting on July 20 fell short of the previously agreed target of relocating 40,000 asylum seekers, they did so nonetheless. accept to harmonize their national OCS lists.

Although there is no provision in EU law for an EU-wide list of SCOs, ministers agreed that the first countries on the non-harmonised list would be the Western Balkan countries . The idea, as expressed in a briefing paper note to the ministers of the European Commission, is to allow “rapid processing of asylum applications from countries designated as safe” so that “return procedures can be initiated more quickly for people whose applications are rejected”.

“Rapid processing” means expedited review of SCO asylum seekers at the border and in transit zones, and weaker safeguards for applicants deemed “manifestly unfounded,” including restrictions on appeal and prompt bans on expulsion and re-entry, in accordance with national laws. .

While it may seem reasonable to eliminate the claims of people from stable, human rights-respecting countries, the fact that Ukraine remained on the UK’s SCO list throughout crisis – and still appears there today – is a warning that these lists can quickly become outdated and do not reflect changes in the countries of origin. This is not to say that Ukraine should have been designated as a dangerous country, but neither should it be assumed that human rights are fully respected throughout the country. country and no refugee can come from there. In fact, the conflict in Ukraine has produced 1.3 million internally displaced persons and more than 800,000 refugees.

The same week that EU interior ministers agreed to include Western Balkan countries on their respective security lists, Human Rights Watch published a 69-page document. report documenting physical attacks and threats, including death threats, punitive prosecutions and smear campaigns against journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. Although the report is specific to attacks on the right to freedom of expression, it calls into question whether we can confidently assume that these countries respect the rule of law and human rights.

Even if the rates of asylum granted from these Western Balkan countries are currently low, should the EU feel sufficiently comfortable with the political stability of these countries and with the treatment of journalists, dissidents politicians and minorities – such as the Roma – to assume that asylum requests come from Western Balkan countries? are these countries fake? Given the large number of asylum seekers straining European asylum procedures, expeditious measures are understandable, but prejudicial measures, as the Canadian court suggests, not only reduce the margins of due process , but also violate human rights.