European Commission: Home Affairs

Procedures for granting or withdrawing refugee status in EU States have been formulated according to their different constitutional and administrative traditions. Establishing a minimum level playing field throughout the EU by introducing guarantees for a fair and efficient procedure commits EU States to reducing differences between national systems. This is the goal behind the Asylum Procedures Directive, which provides important basic safeguards for asylum applicants, while giving EU States a wide choice of tools to increase efficiency and preserve the particularities of their national asylum procedures.

Safeguards for asylum applicants

The Asylum Procedures Directive provides:

• procedural guarantees (information about procedures, opportunities for a personal interview, access to legal assistance)
• minimum requirements for the decision-making process (decisions are to be taken individually, objectively and impartially, by personnel specialised in asylum and refugee matters and specifically trained for that purpose; decisions must be communicated in writing and a negative decision must be motivated)
• the right to appeal a negative decision on an asylum application
• common standards for the application of certain concepts and practices ('inadmissible applications', 'manifestly unfounded applications', 'subsequent applications', 'safe third country' and 'safe country of origin').

These basic principles and guarantees apply for "normal" asylum applications. However, EU States may make provisions for special procedures, for example at a border, that derogate from these principles and guarantees. Moreover, under specific conditions, EU States may declare an application to be inadmissible and not examine its substance, especially when another EU State is competent, or another EU State has already granted the applicant refugee status.

Improving the current legislation

In its 2010 evaluation report, the Commission concluded that differences between asylum legislation and practices persist, despite the measures introduced in the first phase of harmonisation. Some minimum standards are vague, which leaves room for disparate implementation of agreed standards.

Certain standards also seem insufficient to ensure coherence with the evolving case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. To address those deficiencies, as well as those identified during the consultation process that accompanied the Green Paper on the future of the Common European Asylum System, the Commission proposed amending the current Directive. Modifications would provide for a single procedure for refugee and subsidiary protection status determination, enhance the efficiency of the application examination process, facilitate access to examination procedures, improve the quality of asylum decisions and ensure that an asylum applicant can appeal a decision. Since then, the Commission proposal is being negotiated in the European Parliament and in the Council.

To help the negotiations, the Commission presented a modified proposal for this Directive in June 2011.