InfoMigrants

The Council of the European Union has now formally adopted the first EU-wide list of safe countries of origin, to be used in asylum application cases, as well as a revision of the safe third countries concept. The measures are designed to strengthen the new asylum and migration pact, to be introduced later this year.

The two new measures will help to make the EU’s asylum system "more efficient and robust", stated a press release from the Council of the European Union on Monday (February 23).

"This first-ever common EU list of safe countries of origin and the revised safe country concept will support faster, more consistent asylum procedures. They contribute to the materialization of the migration and asylum pact and mark a concrete step towards its implementation. We are committed to its timely delivery," stated Nicholas A. Ioannides, Deputy Minister for Migration and International Protection in the Republic of Cyprus. Cyprus currently holds the rotating EU-presidency.

According to the press release, the EU-wide list of safe countries is designed to help member states deal "more efficiently with applications for international protection lodged by nationals of those countries."

People from a so-called safe country still have the right to apply for asylum, but the recognition rate will often be much lower, or almost non-existent, depending on the country.

More flexibility for the future?

In the past, the idea of safe countries has also been used, for example by Italy, to try and process asylum applications in a different way, for example by sending them to the Italian centers in Albania. However, although Italian authorities transferred people from two countries on its safe-country lis -- Egypt and Bangladesh -- to Albania, they were generally returned to Italy to undergo the standard asylum procedure. Italian courts ruled it wasn’t possible to designate an entire country as safe for everyone, meaning that a person has a right to a full asylum procedure, irrespective of where they might be from.

File photo: A bus with migrants arriving at the center in Gjader, Albania. Most of those who arrived in Albania were sent back to Italy within a few days of arrival | Photo: Domenico Palesse / ANSA

The Council of the European Union also states that by revising the safe third country concept, EU member states will have more "flexibility for rejecting asylum applications as inadmissible."

Both these measures, underlines the Council, are "important for the implementation of the EU’s migration and asylum pact." The pact will be introduced in the middle of 2026 and is part of initiatives to help the EU manage migration in a more effective manner.

A Common Asylum System (CEAS) has been established, with an emphasis on "burden sharing." This strategy, underlines the EU, seeks to make sure that all EU states are helping to deal with migration more equally. Taking on greater quotas of migrants from frontline arrival states, or contributing financially to the support of migrants and asylum seekers and refugees across the bloc.

The new EU list of safe countries includes the following states:

Bangladesh
Colombia
Egypt
India
Kosovo
Morocco
Tunisia

This list also includes the current nine EU-accession candidate countries:

Albania
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Georgia
Moldova
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Serbia
Turkey
Ukraine

In the case of these nine EU-accession candidate countries, the European Council makes certain exceptions. The countries would not be considered safe, states the press release in a situation of "international or internal armed conflict in the candidate country," like for instance in Ukraine at the moment. They would also not be considered safe where the EU has adopted "restrictive measures against the candidate country in questions related to fundamental rights and freedoms." And finally, the country would forfeit its place on the safe list "when the proportion of positive decisions by member state authorities to applications for international protection of citizens from the candidate country is higher than 20 percent."

Faster processing times

Many of the countries on the safe list now were already on individual countries’ lists of safe countries, but the EU hopes that this will ensure "greater consistency across member states" and lead to the "faster processing of applications."

Once applications are processed, the theory is that in the case of those who are deemed not to merit protection, they can be sent back more easily.

File photo used as illustration: The processing of asylum applications, thinks the EU, has held up the possibility of returns, the new rules are meant to expedite that | Photo EUAA

The safe third country concept will allow "EU member states to reject an asylum application as inadmissible (without examining its substance) when asylum seekers could have sought and, if eligible, received international protection in a non-EU country that is considered safe for them."

In response to questions about the new measures, an EU source told InfoMigrants: "The designation of a country as an Safe Country of Origin (SCO) (such as Morocco or Tunisia) at the EU level is based on certain criteria, like the overall security situation, political system, and respect for fundamental rights."

'Safe third country concept'

Legislation relating to the 'safe third country concept' (STC) "broadens and clarifies the grounds for declaring applications inadmissible," states the EU.

This will affect asylum seekers who may have a connection between themselves and the safe third country, when they have transited through a safe third country, or where there is an agreement or arrangement with a safe country.

These rules will be mostly applied from June 12, 2026, at the same time as the rest of the migration and asylum pact.

The Council of the European Union press office confirmed that the list of safe countries is not the same as the list of safe third countries. An EU source told InfoMigrants that there is no list of safe third countries (STC) available. The source added by email: "The STC concept can be applied where an applicant has a connection with, has transited through, or where there is an agreement or arrangement with a third country that is considered safe. Here as well, the third country must meet specific criteria to be considered safe."

Return hubs

They further added: "It is also important to recall that the application of these concepts is at the discretion of member states (they have no obligation to apply either of them)."

When asked whether the STC might be where the EU would situate possible return hubs, the EU source replied: "Return hubs are under discussion within the return regulation, which "will make it possible for both the European Union and one or more member states to make an arrangement or agreement with a third country on return hubs," according to the Council position.

The European Council's position on return regulations so far "clarifies that ‘country of return’ can be a country with which there is an agreement or arrangement on the basis of which the person who has no right to stay in the member states is accepted. It also sets out conditions for creating these agreements or arrangements. They may, for instance, only be concluded with a third country where international human rights standards and principles of international law, including the principle of non-refoulement, are respected. They will furthermore contain procedures for the return of an illegally staying person, the conditions for their stay in the non-EU country and the consequences if the agreement or arrangement is not respected. Such return hubs can function both as centers for onward return towards the final country of return or as the final destination."

Where might they be?

The idea of the safe third country, to which asylum seekers could be sent, has been a popular one over the years with various European and British governments. The former UK Conservative government examined sending asylum seekers to Rwanda to be processed and accommodated there. The Netherlands is trying to broker a similar type of deal with Uganda. Italy already has a deal with Albania. It has been reported that Denmark, Britain, Austria and Germany are also all interested in brokering similar deals.

File photo: The British Conservative government had a plan to rehouse asylum seekers in Rwanda, but although billions of pounds were paid, the deal never got off the ground and this accommodation was not used for its intended receipients | Photo: Stefan Rousseau / dpa / PA Wire / picture alliance

But, in practice, no actual countries have been formally identified as potential candidates or actual possibilities. Albania’s leader Edi Rama has reiterated several times, even while signing agreements including migration clauses with other countries, that its deal with Italy will remain exclusive. Government officials in Montenegro and North Macedonia have also both denied, towards the end of 2025, the idea that their countries might be used in future to play host to EU return hubs.

Leaders in North Macedonia called the suggestion of a return hub on their territory "absurd and malicious misinformation." This was reported by Sky News when the UK government was visiting the country, reportedly to try and broker an Albania-style return hub deal.

Criticism of the deal

The idea of being able to speed up deportations to countries declared safe has long been criticized by NGOs and bodies that work closely with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Many of their criticisms have been upheld over the years in courts across the bloc, including in the EU's own court of human rights.

In February 2024, for instance, the German organization Pro Asyl wrote about the "safe third country concept" in relation to legal standards and implementation in the Greek asylum system.

Pro Asyl believes that the 'safe third country concept' is a way for European governments "to shift their responsibility for processing refugee claims to other states." This concept was key to the implementation and design of the CEAS, according to Pro Asyl.

File photo used as illustration: Greece has been attempting to use the 'third country concept' to declare asylum applications inadmissible for several years and has been criticized by organizations like Pro Asyl and also found its decisions challenged in court | Photo: Maryna Koptyeva / picture alliance / Zoonar

Yet, these policies "regularly come to a direct clash with human rights and the rule of law, hence their extensive litigation before national jurisdictions and European courts."

The idea, writes Pro Asyl in their 2024 study, "creates potent risks of refoulement." For instance, the Greek Asylum Service designated Turkey as a safe third country for applicants from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In doing so, claims Pro Asyl, they had dismissed "over 10,000 asylum claims" in 2022 and 2023 from people from those countries who had previously been in Turkey prior to landing in Greece.

Case studies

Pro Asyl’s study underlines that when member states are designating safe third countries, they have a responsibility to include up to date information, which they must source from "other member states, EASO (The European Asylum Support Office), UNHCR and the Council of Europe."

Sometimes, these designations have been challenged in court because of the potential for refoulement. For instance, Pro Asyl highlighted a case from 2019 where Hungary had designated Serbia a safe third country, but was later found by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to contravene the prohibition on refoulement, which is guaranteed under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

This was because there have been cases where migrants found in Serbia might be pushed back to neighboring states, which is essentially refoulement.

File photo used as illustration: The Turkish authorities have been accused of cooercing some groups of asylum seekers into signing 'voluntary returns' forms and sending them back to their home countries | Photo: Tolga Ildun/ZUMAPRESS/picture-alliance

The 'connection criterion'

In the same study, Pro Asyl also pulled apart the so-called 'connection criterion' which is mentioned in the EU’s press release. According to a decision in 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found that a connection cannot be established per se just because a migrant or asylum seeker transited that country on their way to the EU.

According to Greek law at the time, potential connections could be established depending on the length of stay in a certain country, whether the subject had contact with the country’s authorities or access to employment or was staying there lawfully, whether they had prior residence there, had studied there, or had professional or cultural ties, knew the language or if that country had geographical proximity to their own country of origin.

This last argument could potentially be invoked if an EU country wanted to send people from a certain region back to a third safe country in the same region. Under Greek law, notes Pro Asyl, the 'geographical proximity' was applied both to Syrian and Afghan nationals. Syria and Turkey do share a border, but Afghanistan and Turkey are separated by Iran. According to Pro Asyl, the Greek Asylum service "seemed to stretch this tenuous interpretation even further to cover countries geographically remote from Turkey." Including Somalia. In the case of Somalia, writes Pro Asyl, the Greek decision invoked an alleged "political proximity" between the Turkish and Somali governments.

Later in the report, Pro Asyl underlines that although these arguments were used in Greek cases of inadmissibility, no actual returns took place between Greece and Turkey from 2020 to the time of the report’s publication in 2024. This is because Turkish-Greek relations are generally not particularly smooth and for a return to take place, the country to receive the return must give its permission. This is also confirmed by the European Council's response to our questions, putting the onus on the destination countries to agree to any future EU plans, explaining perhaps why there is, as yet, no concrete list for which countries could be designated as STCs or as sites for possible return hubs.