Europe not living to its asylum policies
Regional-European Union, Local, 4/20/2006

The European Union's "Dublin II Regulation," which identifies EU states responsible for examining an asylum claim, needs substantial revision, according to a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) study published Thursday.

"Both in the regulation itself and the way it is put into practice, we see that there are gaps which not only cause hardship for asylum-seekers but can also result in a failure to examine an asylum claim at all," said the director of UNHCR's Bureau of Europe, Pirkko Kourula, in a statement.

The UNHCR report was issued as the European Commission is preparing its own review of the regulation.

The Dublin II Regulation entered into force in September 2003. It applies, for example, when an asylum-seeker enters the European Union through one member state but then moves on and requests asylum in another.

The regulation's purpose is to determine which state is responsible for examining an asylum application, to make sure that each claim gets a fair examination in one member state, and to discourage persons from applying for asylum in more than one country.

UNHCR's report recommends that the text of the regulation clearly prohibit sending the asylum-seeker outside the Dublin space without examining his or her application.

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