Status: 12/16/2022 12:39 p.m
The Union has sharply criticized the traffic light coalition’s plans for asylum and migration. Now she is making her own proposal. She wants a new procedure for classifying safe countries of origin.
The Union is opposed to the federal government’s plans for asylum and migration. The interior experts from the CDU and CSU speak of a “ghost trip”. Now they want to set their own accent – and make the problem of safe countries of origin a topic again. Unlike in the previous legislative period, they are not just concerned with declaring Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Georgia to be “safe”. To put it simply, this plan by ex-Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer failed at the time due to resistance from the Greens in the Bundesrat.
The core of the Union’s new application is now a “regular and orderly procedure” to clarify which countries of origin could be considered “safe”. For asylum seekers from such so-called safe countries of origin, the asylum procedure would usually be shorter. The hope of the Union: The authorities could be relieved, the return of those who were obliged to leave the country could be made easier.
What are safe countries of origin?
The term “safe countries of origin” has been part of German asylum law since 1993. According to Article 16a paragraph 3, the legislature can declare certain countries to be safe countries of origin. This is possible if it is considered certain that no political persecution and also no inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment takes place in this country.
For this purpose, three things are evaluated in the state concerned: the legal situation, the application of the law and the general political situation. If there is political persecution in individual parts of the country or, for example, individual population groups are treated inhumanely or punished (e.g. tortured) or are politically persecuted, the country must not be declared a safe country of origin.
More than 180,000 asylum applications
Thorsten Frei, Parliamentary Secretary of the Union said that ARD Capital Studio: Germany not only took in around one million Ukrainian war refugees this year. By the end of October, more than 180,000 asylum applications had been made. “It’s not uncommon for people who have no chance of being recognized as refugees and who come to Germany solely for economic reasons. This applies in particular to Georgia. The chances of being recognized here are practically zero,” says Frei. Nevertheless, Georgia is among the top ten countries of origin.
The application states: “However, the examination and decision of a large number of obviously unfounded applications means a considerable personal and financial burden for the federal, state and local governments due to the complex procedures and the care of the asylum seekers in Germany.”
Mountains of files in administrative courts
The expert for migration law Daniel Thym from the University of Konstanz adds that long asylum procedures leave those affected in the dark and delay integration in the event of recognition at the end of the procedure. Conversely, the probability that rejected asylum seekers would be deported decreases. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is getting better and better at processing cases. However, the mountains of files at administrative courts are constantly growing. In other words, the number of lawsuits against rejecting asylum decisions is growing. In 2021, a first-instance main issue procedure lasted an average of 26.5 months, and the trend is rising, according to Thym.
The traffic light coalition is therefore relying on an “Asylum Procedure Acceleration Act”. This includes several regulations intended to relieve the BAMF and the administrative courts. For example, regular reviews of asylum decisions are to be abolished. It is disputed whether the burden on the administrative courts can also be noticeably relieved. For example, “independent procedural advice” is also planned. This could definitely increase the quality and acceptance of the process, says Thym. However, this is unlikely to reduce the high rate of lawsuits.
Union wants testing in two stages
The parliamentary group of the CDU and CSU, in turn, refers to the fact that the Western Balkan countries have already been classified as “safe countries of origin”. In the past, they have proven that this instrument leads to a reduction in the number of applications and an acceleration of the asylum procedure without curtailing the individual right to asylum, according to the decision.
The regular and orderly procedure that the Union is now proposing provides for an examination in two stages. By the end of 2022, a “preliminary check” should be carried out. This is intended to clarify to what extent those states whose recognition rate has been below five percent for at least five years and on average over the past ten years probably meet the requirements for classification based on the current status reports from the Federal Foreign Office. For countries of origin where classification as safe countries is considered likely after the preliminary examination, a “full examination” should then be initiated – taking into account the requirements of the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court on Article 16a paragraph 3 of the Basic Law and the requirements of the EU directive.
How is the FDP positioned?
The Basic Law and the EU Asylum Procedures Directive provide that classification can also occur if there are individual cases that contradict the basic assumption that the country of origin is safe, explains Thym. “In other words: the Basic Law and the directive assume that a systematic examination by the legislature does not cover all individual cases.” The legislature does not require 100% security. Whether there is an exception, for example because homosexual asylum seekers do not feel safe in their home countries in the Maghreb, can and must also be clarified by the BAMF procedures.
It will be exciting to see how the FDP reacts to the Union’s proposal. She had proposed a similar examination procedure in the previous legislative period. CDU politician Frei demands that the traffic light coalition partners must make every effort to ensure that people from safe countries of origin do not make their way to Germany in the first place. The Union wants to bring the application to the Bundestag in the coming year.