CoE Commissioner back calls for Dublin Regulation on migrants to be revamped

The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg has called for a revamp of the Dublin Regulation which governs the granting of refugee status for migrants, claiming that countries such as Greece and Malta have unable to provide adequate protection because the numbers of asylum seekers have exceeded their capacity. He also called for greater solidarity from the Northern European states, and relief from the Dublin regulations for the border states.

However his suggestions only appear to be financial and technical.

"The asylum procedures of European countries are still flawed – they need to be improved and better harmonised, Mr Hammarberg said in a statement today.

Under the Dublin system, the responsibility for examining asylum applications is shouldered by the EU border states, through which most asylum seekers enter.

"This has not been successful in practice. Countries such as Greece and Malta have, during recent years, been unable to provide adequate protection because the numbers of asylum seekers have exceeded their capacity. This is simply not fair and has, in extreme cases, even put lives at risk. It is now high time to revise the Dublin Regulation."

He said the regulation was not designed to guarantee that the responsibility for asylum seekers is shared among the EU member states. Nor did it ensure that asylum seekers had access to adequate asylum procedures.

"It is based on the false assumption that the national asylum systems in place in Europe all provide similar, high standards of protection to people who seek to escape from violence and persecution.

The system does not function – refugees are the victim."

He said that EU states needed to halt all transfers of asylum seekers back to countries where they faced enormous difficulties in gaining access to the asylum procedure and where they did not enjoy basic safeguards such as interpretation and legal aid.

Another serious side effect of the Dublin system was an increase in the use of detention for asylum seekers who were subject to transfer decisions, as the authorities in the host country feared that they may abscond before the transfer is carried out, the commission said.

He complained that states in northern Europe, far from the borders in the south and the east, have so far not been co-operative in discussions about resolving this mess.

"The system as such must be revised and replaced with policies which are fair and efficient, in line with the principle of solidarity – based on common principles and values."

He noted that the European Commission had suggested that it should be possible to suspend transfers and give states under particular strain short-term relief from their responsibilities under the Dublin Regulation.

Such a mechanism, he said, should also offer the possibility of seeking financial or technical assistance in order to cope."