Prevent legal loopholes in EU asylum law

Joint call to reject the use of legal loopholes in EU asylum law reforms.

In addition to finalising the EU Pact on migration and asylum, the Member States and European Parliament are negotiating another proposal for a Crisis, Force Majeure and Instrumentalisation Regulation.

As we already outlined in a joint statement in September 2022, we are concerned that this proposal would allow Member States to avoid their legal obligations to those seeking asylum in cases of alleged “instrumentalisation of migrants” by a third country. With this proposal, Member States would instate three mitigating scenarios: crisis, force majeure and instrumentalisation, instances which are either only vaguely defined or not at all, allowing for a wide-range of legal loopholes to providing adequate asylum procedures. The proposal could lead to a reduced access to asylum, more pushbacks, widespread use of detrimental border procedures, and substandard reception conditions and detention.

This comes at a time when the major challenge in the Common European Asylum System is the lack of respect for legal obligations which has a negative impact on the fundamental rights of people seeking protection in Europe.

Therefore, we reject the attempt to introduce mechanisms that allow Member States to evade their obligations in various situations and we outline a series of recommendation to Member States and the European Parliament to protect the right to asylum.

The joint statement is also available in Catalan, French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish (ECRE webpage).