refugee summit on Wednesday
List of safe countries of origin for migrants could grow
05/07/2023 09:32 am
The refugee summit in the Chancellery next Wednesday will also address the question of how the federal and state governments can facilitate faster asylum procedures and repatriations to relieve the municipalities. One lever is the list of safe countries of origin. The German government’s special representative for migration, Joachim Stamp, has now proposed the admission of Georgia and Moldova. What it’s about:
What are safe countries of origin?
The Asylum Act defines countries as safe countries of origin in which, given the general situation, it can be assumed that there is no fear of persecution – for example on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political conviction or membership of a certain social group.
What does this mean for the asylum procedure?
According to the Asylum Act, asylum applications from people from safe countries of origin are to be rejected as “obviously unfounded” unless those affected can prove the opposite. If the application is rejected, the appeal periods are shortened, which speeds up the procedure.
Which safe countries of origin are there so far?
So far, eight countries have been defined as safe countries of origin: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Senegal and Serbia.
How are safe countries of origin determined?
The Bundestag and Bundesrat decide on this. The list of safe countries of origin can then be found in an appendix to the Asylum Act. Every two years, the federal government must submit a report to the Bundestag on whether it still considers the requirements for classification as a safe country of origin to be met.
Which other safe countries of origin have been discussed so far?
In 2019, the Bundestag decided to expand the list of safe countries of origin to include Georgia, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. However, this has not yet been voted on in the Bundesrat because there was no prospect of a majority. The Greens in several state governments opposed the inclusion and expressed reservations in particular about the North African Maghreb states. Before meeting Scholz, several prime ministers from the CDU and SPD have now called for a new attempt to be made here.
How many asylum seekers came from Georgia and Moldova last year?
Last year there were 217,774 initial applications for asylum in Germany. In the case of Georgia, there were 7963 and thus around 3.7 percent of all applications. Moldova had 2,589, or around 1.2 percent.