16.04.2025 17:50
The European Union has declared Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco, and Tunisia as safe countries in order to make asylum applications more difficult. Turkey, however, was not included in the list.
The EU is preparing to complicate asylum applications from seven countries by declaring them safe countries. The list announced by the European Commission includes Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco, and Tunisia, while Turkey is not included.
THE EU WILL DECLARE 7 COUNTRIES AS SAFE COUNTRIES
The European Commission today publicly announced the first "list of safe countries" that will apply to all member states to limit asylum applications to the EU. In its statement, the Commission listed the countries included in this list as Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco, and Tunisia. Since these countries will be classified as "safe," asylum applications from their citizens to the EU will become more difficult.
ASLYUM APPLICATIONS WILL BECOME MORE DIFFICULT
Member states of the EU will be able to process and reject applications more quickly, based on the assumption that asylum requests from citizens of the seven countries listed will not be admissible. Additionally, the deportation of those who have entered the EU illegally from these countries will also accelerate. Some member states already have a national list of safe countries. With the Commission's latest move, a common list that will cover the entire EU has been created, and coordination in policies will be ensured.
Magnus Brunner, the Commissioner for Migration of the European Commission, pointed out in his statement about the proposals that there has been a serious backlog in asylum applications in many member countries, stating, "It is very important to do everything we can now to support faster asylum decisions." Attention is now turned to the European Parliament and the European Council for the formal acceptance of the list.
TURKEY IS NOT ON THE LIST
In 2015, the Commission proposed a list that also ranked certain countries as safe countries, but the process was not concluded due to heated debates among member countries about whether Turkey would be included in this list.
In today's statement, while the Commission does not include Turkey as a country, it emphasizes that it is assumed that candidate countries for EU membership meet the necessary criteria to be classified as safe countries in principle, but it also points out that there are some exceptional circumstances. The statement emphasizes that candidate countries are on the path to membership and are therefore working to stabilize their institutions that guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for minorities, indicating that a candidate country may be excluded from the list of safe countries under certain special conditions.
The exceptional circumstances are listed as follows: The presence of violence that does not discriminate in a conflict in the candidate country and the imposition of sanctions by the Council of Europe on the candidate country, or the acceptance rate of asylum applications from that country being over 20% across the EU. In recent months, the political debates caused by irregular migration in many member countries have led to public concerns and the rise of far-right and right-wing populist political parties. The anti-EU rhetoric of far-right parties has also increased pressure on Brussels regarding the prevention of irregular migration.