Easier expulsions: how the EU wants to revise the concept of safe countries

BRUSSELS - The European Commission yesterday unveiled a draft law that, if approved, will introduce a brutal clampdown on immigration, and on asylum in particular. The proposal envisages the facilitated application of the concept of a safe country to which an applicant for international protection can be transferred. In fact, according to the EU executive, it is a question of using more freely than before the example offered by the 2016 agreement with Turkey.

"The safe third country concept," Brussels explains, "allows member states to consider an asylum application inadmissible when the applicant could receive effective protection in a third country considered safe. EU law currently requires asylum authorities to demonstrate a link between the applicant and the safe third country in question'. In its proposal, the European Commission waters down this last condition.

According to the legislative text, which will now have to be approved by the Council and Parliament, the link between the applicant and the safe third country will no longer be mandatory. Transit through a safe third country before reaching the Union may also be considered as a sufficient link to apply the safe third country concept. In the absence of transit, the concept may be applied if there is an agreement or convention with a safe third country.

According to Commission spokesman Markus Lammert, the legislative change will make it easier than before to replicate the agreement the EU signed with Turkey in 2016. The agreement allowed Greece to send back thousands of people who had arrived on EU territory (considering Turkey a safe country) to Turkish territory. A parallel with the Italo-Albanian agreement, an official explained, would be wrong, however, as Italian law is applied in the Gjadër centre.