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“Without the Common European Asylum System, the Schengen area is at risk”

April 18, 2023

“Without the Common European Asylum System, the Schengen area is at risk”

type:
News

, Topic:
Migration

, Date:
24 March 2023

Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser and her counterparts from five EU countries urge agreement on reforming the Common European Asylum System

Nancy Faeser, Germany’s Federal Minister of the Interior and Community, welcomed her counterparts from Belgium, France, Italy and Spain as well as Sweden, the current holder of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU, at the ministry in Berlin today to discuss unresolved issues concerning the planned reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).

quote:

The reform of the Common European Asylum System will succeed only if all sides are willing to accept compromises. Our goal for the negotiations is to find a good balance between responsibility and solidarity.

Federal Minister Faeser after the meeting

Agreement before the European elections in 2024

Federal Minister Faeser stressed the importance of swiftly resolving the remaining issues most recently at the Council of EU home affairs ministers in Brussels in early March, saying that this was the only way the CEAS reform could be adopted at European level before the next elections to the European Parliament in 2024.

Federal Minister Faeser said that every EU member state must help in reducing irregular migration within the EU, for example by registering and screening migrants at the EU’s external borders. “Without CEAS reform, which would provide for the reliable registration of migrants at the external borders, free movement within the Schengen area would be at serious risk,” she said.

The solidarity mechanism for the distribution of migrants seeking protection

The federal minister also said that EU member states facing exceptional pressure from migration must be able to count on lasting solidarity. This includes a solidarity mechanism, which is intended among other things to include provisions on the distribution of migrants seeking protection.

Under the voluntary solidarity mechanism, Germany has admitted 427 such migrants from Italy and 93 from Cyprus to date and plans to admit more.

Reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS)

The European Union has set minimum standards for conducting asylum procedures and for housing and caring for asylum seekers. These standards are based on the current Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which is made up of directives and regulations. The most familiar of these is likely to be the “Dublin Regulation” on the right of residence in the EU.

The reform of the CEAS has been in planning for a number of years. The ministers of Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden who are responsible for the issue of migration in their countries visited the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community to exchange their views on the reform process. They share the aim of advancing the reform and completing it before the next elections European parliamentary elections in spring 2024.

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Originally published at https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/kurzmeldungen/EN/2023/03/treffen-geas-reform.html;jsessionid=834239A6B6E6AEA4357A6E009C03F153.1_cid287