EU: Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe (25.10-5.11.18)
06 November 2018
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EU
Council Presidency
calls for action on "secondary movements" of refugees
6.11.18
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The Austrian Council Presidency has circulated a Note to the Strategic Committee on immigration, Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA) on:Secondary movements (LIMITE doc no: 13353-18, pdf) which seeks to monitor the movement of refugees from the country of arrival northwards - particularly from Greece and Italy - to other EU Member States.
On 28-29 June the European Council underlined that:
"concerning the
situation internally in the EU, secondary movements of asylum
seekers between Member States risk jeopardizing the integrity
of the Common European Asylum System and the Schengen acquis.
Furthermore, the European Council calls on Member States to
take all necessary internal legislative and administrative measures
to counter such movements and to closely cooperate amongst
each other to that end." [emphasis added throughout]
However:
"when it comes to the scale of secondary movements, so far there is no EU-wide clear picture."
The Presidency says that the two issues that "have to be addressed" are:
"1. Secondary movements of already
registered persons
2. Unregistered asylum seekers
Secondary movements of already
registered persons
A starting point to measure secondary movements of already registered
persons is the number of EURODAC hits across the EU. According
to the annual report of eu-LISA in 2017, there were:
•
257,63 hits related to data for applicants for international
protection who have lodged a new application for international
protection in another Member State,
• 99,032
hits related to data for persons apprehended while irregularly
crossing the external border of a Member State who have subsequently
lodged an application for international protection in another
Member State and
•
129,433 hits related to data for persons found illegally staying
in a Member State who had previously lodged an application for
international protection in another Member State."
Eurodac data however has limitations,
there may be multiple hits, minors are not registered, data of
persons found illegal staying in the EU "is not stored"
and data for people "irregularly" crossing external
borders is only held for 18 months.
Unregistered asylum seekers
The above does not include refugees " who were able to enter
the EU territory and avoid registration by circumventing external
border controls".
The reasons for previously non-registered asylum applicants may
also be related to persons with temporary residence permit applying
for asylum, the asylum application of new born children, or applications
of visa over-stayers or the 18-months EURODAC storage period
having elapsed.
'Limiting abuse and secondary movements' - Dublin Regulation
Last year, when the Council was discussing changes to the Dublin Regulation (LIMITE doc no: 9221-17, pdf) some Member State wanted to take a hard line:
"AT, BE, CY, HU: favour stricter sanctions to strongly discourage secondary movements such as detention to secure the transfer to the MS responsible."
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