Brochure on the Common European Asylum System (CEAS)
Huge prisons for 120,000 people in Italy, Spain or Greece, asylum decisions after 12 weeks, and Türkiye as a safe third country?
On April 10, 2024, the final reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was approved by the EU Parliament and the Council of the EU. A large part of the regulations of this reform relate to the external borders of the EU and are to be applied from 2026. These include fast-track procedures under conditions of detention and deportations to “safe third countries”.
European politicians have already celebrated it as a “historic success – for the European Union, for a new, solidarity-based migration policy and for the protection of human rights”.1
It is clear to us that this (not so) new migration policy is not based on solidarity, but it is rather deeply inhumane and racist. It is not about protecting people, but about protecting capital and global power relations.
The CEAS reform practically means the abolition of the right to asylum and is another step in the constant buildup of the EU’s external borders.
This reform relates to a total of 10 laws and contains a long list of articles. The implementation will probably take years and much of it is still very unclear.
As it is impossible for us to go into everything, we have described the three aspects that concern us the most here. We are a group of people who are trying to come to terms with the changes and understand what they would concretely mean.
- The border procedures
- The “safe third countries”
- The crisis regulation
- Statement by SPD (The Social Democratic Party of Germany) Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser ↩︎