EU-landen akkoord over cruciale asielprocedures en 'veilige landen' (en)

EUOBSERVER / LUXEMBOURG - EU interior ministers on Thursday managed to forge a deal on a crucial piece of asylum legislation after years of wrangling.

The legislation sets out common EU rules on granting and withdrawing refugee status.

The deal was agreed only two days before the 1 May deadline and EU enlargement - narrowly avoiding the situation where the controversial issues would have had to be agreed on between 25 member states.

The rules deal with matters such as the right of access for an asylum procedure and include criteria for prioritisation and acceleration of applications.

The ministers wanted to abolish differences in asylum benefits among EU states to eliminate "asylum shopping", when asylum seekers pick the country that offers them the most advantageous conditions.

Safe countries

Member states agreed to establish a minimum list of safe countries of origin, whereby asylum applicants coming from those countries will have their application denied by an accelerated procedure.

Although in the coming months there will be an assessment of countries which may be included in such a list, there is already an initial list of countries which, besides Romania and Bulgaria, "may also be suitable for inclusion".

These are Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Chile, Costa Rica, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Senegal and Uruguay.

There will be no EU common list of "safe third countries", a concept which would have allowed EU states to send asylum seekers to specific third countries, if the asylum seekers had passed through on their way to their final destination.

But EU states will still be allowed to have their own national list of such countries considered as "safe".

Refugee and human rights organisations had raised concerns that such a concept could lead asylum seekers to be sent to a country where they have never been or which does not provide sufficient protection for refugees.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it "still has some problems" with the agreement reached and expressed concern that some people may be sent away from the country where they asked for asylum before the outcome of the appeal.

A spokesperson for UNHCR told EUobserver that in some EU countries, 30-60% of refugees were recognised only after appeal.

"The UNHCR urges EU states to ensure high standards of refugee protection are maintained when this directive is implemented in national law".

Besides the agreement on this directive before the looming 1 May deadline, the ministers also formally adopted the directive setting out common definitions of who qualifies as a refugee, on which political agreement between EU states was already reached in March.

First phase of Common EU asylum system

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino said that Thursday's agreement "means that the first phase of the Common European Asylum System has now been established".

However he added that the "level of ambition [in the adopted text] is lower than the initial proposal".

"I regret that but at this stage it is the best agreement that we could get", Mr Vitorino said.

He also said he is "totally sure" that this directive is in line with international obligations.

The approval of this asylum directive will also bring about significant changes to how further legislation in this area will be adopted.

The European Parliament will now be able to amend the Commission's proposals through "co-decision" and EU ministers will be able to reach an agreement with qualified majority voting instead of unanimity.

This directive will be adopted after the European Parliament has given its opinion.