On Wednesday, April 16, 2025, the European Union published a list of seven safe countries, including Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco, and Tunisia, in a bid to facilitate migrant returns as Brussels faces pressure to tighten asylum rules. However, the real question is, safe for whom? And safe… how exactly?
The EU’s latest move aims to fast-track deportations, claiming that asylum seekers from these nations are unlikely to qualify for protection. The plan? Wrap up applications within three months instead of six. Efficiency, they say. But critics argue it’s just a bureaucratic sleight of hand to push people out faster, regardless of the realities they face back home.
The EU’s commissioner for migration, Magnus Brunner, said, “Many member states are facing a significant backlog of asylum applications, so anything we can do now to support faster asylum decisions is essential.”
According to a foreign policy specialist at Amnesty International in Brussels, Hussein Baoumi, the concept of safe countries in asylum procedures “may lead to discrimination among refugees based on their country of nationality and detract from an individualized assessment.”
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Remember 2015? The commission presented a similar list in 2015; however, the plan was abandoned due to heated debates over whether or not to include Turkey.
Over a million migrants flooded into Europe, forcing the bloc to rethink its asylum policies. Fast forward to today, and the EU is still scrambling to ‘fix’ the system. The latest attempt? A dynamic list that can be expanded or reviewed, meaning countries can be added or removed based on political convenience.
The proposal is an amendment to the Asylum Procedures Regulation that forms part of the EU migration pact adopted in 2023 and due to take effect in 2026.
