The EU has announced an agreement to facilitate the deportation of asylum seekers to 'safe third countries'

Europe has taken a further step in the field of asylum policies and has paved the way for the deportation of migrants outside the EU. The Council of the European Union and theEuropean Parliament have reached an interim agreement  to be able to reject without examining the content of an asylum application, redefining the concept of 'safe third country', which aims to facilitate the return of applicants to safe countries outside the European Union.

The agreement was concluded in the early morning hours of Wednesday between the Twenty-seven and the representatives of the European Parliament, and I shall now have to ratify it by both institutions in order to formalise the decision.

New cases of "safe third country" application

Under the Agreement, Member States may apply the concept of a safe third country in three specific circumstances, a mechanism whereby an asylum application may be rejected without an assessment of its content.

The first of these cases provides for the existence of a connection between the asylum seeker and a third country that is considered safe, but the text introduces an important change: such a connection shall not be a necessary criterion for the application of such denial.

The second situation shall make it possible to apply this concept when the applicant has been in a secure third country before reaching the European Union, even if there is no prior connection with that State.

With regard to the third case, the concept of a 'safe third country' shall be activated when there is an agreement or agreement between a Member State and a secure third country guaranteeing that the third country outside the EU shall consider its application for asylum. 

This point strengthens the possibility of outsourcing asylum proceedings, provided that the third country formally assumes the examination of applications and is considered safe under European law.

However, the agreement has an important limitation that the latter case cannot apply to unaccompanied minors who are excluded from the use of this mechanism.

The provisional agreement, which must now be formally ratified by the EU Council and the European Parliament, would enter into force on 12 June 2026, and from that date the amendments would apply directly to all Member States.