June 2018 European Council
According to the Commission’s plans, the June 2018 European Council is
meant to reach a political agreement on the overall reform of the CEAS. Some
parts are scheduled to be concluded earlier. Of course, the timetable is
ambitious, as the reform of the Dublin III Regulation in particular is the subject of
much debate among the member states.
The proposed recast seeks to provide for a “fair system for determining the
member state responsible for examining asylum applications”. The major
amendments primarily aim at three issues:
— The criteria for determining responsibility. Apart from the country of first
entry principle, relevant criteria relating to family links shall also be
amended. The definition of family members shall be extended in two ways:
by (1) including the sibling or siblings of an applicant and by (2) including
family relations which were formed after leaving the country of origin but
before arrival on the territory of the member state.
— The rules and time limits relevant to asylum application and to readmission
procedures. Amendments here look to accelerate the determination
procedure and prevent repeated procedures in different countries. For this
purpose, the obligations for applicants, e.g. Cooperation with the competent
authorities, shall be clarified, as well as the consequences of violations of
these obligations. Among others, an applicant shall be entitled to the (full set
of) reception conditions only where he or she is required to be present.
— Introduction of a corrective allocation mechanism “in order to ensure a fair
sharing of responsibility between member states”. This mechanism shall be
triggered automatically “when a member state is confronted with a
disproportionate number of applications for international protection”.
— The number of applicants for which a country would be responsible under
fair conditions shall be specified by means of a reference key. This key shall
be based on two criteria: the size of the population and the GDP of a
member state. The mechanism is triggered if the real number of applicants
is 50% higher than a state’s relevant reference figure. When this happens,
all new applications shall be allocated to other member states where the
number of applications for which these states are initially responsible is
below the number identified in the reference key.
EU Forecast
euf:ba1.8i:96/nws-01