News item | 30-06-2025 | 15:00
If it is up to the European Commission, the possibilities for Member States will be broadened not to process an asylum request in substance if someone can get protection in another, safe country outside the EU. With other Member States, the Cabinet asked the Commission to come up with a proposal. This proposal must ensure that fewer people come to the Netherlands and we get a grip on migration.
Now it is true that an asylum request cannot be processed in terms of content when the asylum seeker has a bond with another safe country outside the EU. This proposal gives legally the opportunity to do this when an asylum seeker has traveled through another Safe Land or if the EU or the Netherlands has agreements with a safe country to go through the asylum procedure there
Minister Van Hijum for Asylum and Migration: “The Netherlands has argued for this in Brussels that the European Commission has come up with this proposal. This laid the legal basis for not treating every asylum application in the Netherlands in the Netherlands. We continue to work hard in a European context to get a grip on migration. I will be committed to that in the coming period.”
With the adjustment of the concept of ‘safe third country’ it becomes easier to say: we are not going to handle your asylum request because there is also another safe country you can go to. Conditions remain attached to this. For example, the asylum seeker must actually be able to access that safe country. In addition, there are criteria in international law and the asylum procedure regulation that a country must meet in order to be considered safe. That remains unchanged.
The starting point is also that everyone who applies for asylum must be able to do that in a safe way. But if there are agreements with a third country, that does not necessarily have to be in the Netherlands or the European Union. In the coming period, the Netherlands is committed to completing the negotiations on this proposal, both with the other Member States and the European Parliament as quickly as possible.