EU countries have agreed to overhaul the bloc’s asylum and immigration system to allow some applications to be processed faster at border facilities after seven years of deadlocked negotiations.
At a meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday, interior ministers laid out technical details that could have implications for the rights of asylum seekers. Italy and Germany played key roles in the closing hours.
Ministers finally agreed to send people whose asylum claims were rejected to third countries deemed safe. Germany had pushed for safeguards to prevent them from being sent to places they had nothing to do with, while Rome had argued for looser standards to make deportation easier.
The final compromise cites human rights safeguards but gives individual member states more leeway in deciding whether a third country qualifies for security.
Negotiations to overhaul EU asylum and immigration rules have stalled since the European Commission first proposed the reforms in 2016, with rising immigration adding to the pressure.
The main fault line runs between southern countries such as Italy and Greece, which under current rules are responsible for registering many arrivals seeking asylum, and northern countries such as Germany or the Netherlands, where many of them travel.
“Today, many migrants enter European territory without any controls, they go from one country to another,” Nicole de Moore, Belgium’s secretary of state for immigration, told the FT. “It makes our system difficult to deal with. We need more solidarity among European member states and we need a better controlled system.”
The compromise now expects the process at border facilities to last up to six months for those whose asylum claims are deemed to have a low chance of being approved.
Unaccompanied minors would be exempt from the process, but families with children could be processed at the EU’s external borders and held in facilities there.
To this end, around 30,000 mandatory spaces will be filled on a rolling basis across the European Union. Southern states, including Italy, have capped the number of “border procedures” that must be carried out each year.
Ministers also supported solidarity mechanisms to share the burden among countries. States can choose to receive relocated people who need protection, or put the money in a mutual fund. At least 30,000 people or 600 million euros should be distributed annually.
Relations with Tunisia, from which departures to Europe have increased in recent months, were also discussed. A financial aid package for the country is being discussed and a possible agreement with Tunisia to limit the number of people is under discussion, the people said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch leader Mark Rutte will travel to Tunisia on Sunday.
Human rights groups say the reforms could lead to an increase in border detention and limit access to rights.
Imogen Sudbery of the International Rescue Committee told the Financial Times: “No one should be sent back to a potentially unsafe country until their claim has been very fully and thoroughly reviewed and given full rights of appeal. It’s a possibility that could be hollowed out by the border process.”
The EU has funded reception centers on Greek islands, where border procedures have been implemented. The European Ombudsman launched an investigation into the centers last year over alleged abuses of fundamental rights.
The blanket application of accelerated procedures, especially in the case of children, could “reduce and somewhat hollow out their entitlements,” Sudbery said.
The agreement hammered out by member states still needs to be negotiated with the European Parliament in the coming months, meaning many of the terms laid out by ministers are likely to be revisited.