25 November 2022
On 21 November, the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU circulated an updated compromise text of the proposed 'Regulation addressing situations of instrumentalisation in the field of migration and asylum'.
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Image: Kancelaria Premiera, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
One substantial change compared to the previous version of the text is the removal of an obligation to continue applying derogations to EU asylum law to people in the asylum procedure even after the derogation itself has been terminated.
Now, the Presidency is proposing making it optional:
"Member States may continue to apply the procedural derogations set out in the Council implementing decision referred to in paragraph 3 in respect of those applicants whose applications for international protection have been registered in accordance with this Regulation until a final decision is taken on their application or until the third-country nationals concerned are returned in accordance with Article 4."
Documentation
References to child’s best interest and non-refoulement removed; derogations could be applied to people “disembarked following search and rescue operations”.
After the ongoing politico-diplomatic clash between the EU and Belarus reached a peak in the summer of 2021, press attention turned towards the situation at the Polish-Belarussian border, where thousands of people arrived hoping to travel onwards to EU territory. However, the response from the Lithuanian authorities also merits examination: the country's efforts to prevent irregular arrivals have been widely supported by the EU, despite widespread allegations of fundamental rights violations.
In response to the arrival of thousands of people at the EU's borders with Belarus, the European Commission has published a raft of new proposals that would weaken asylum rights and strengthen border surveillance and controls. Described as “temporary” on 1 December, proposals published this week would allow their enactment whenever the Council deems migrants are being “instrumentalised” to “attack” the European Union.
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