The Commission’s asylum reform package has been presented in two phases. The first phase concerns proposals to amend the Dublin rules and the Eurodac asylum database, and to transform the European Asylum Support Office into the EU Agency for Asylum. An opt-in debate on these proposals took place on 15 November. The House endorsed the Government’s motion recommending that the UK opt into the proposed Eurodac Regulation but not opt into the proposed Dublin Regulation and the proposed EU Asylum Agency Regulation. We recommended a separate opt-in debate on the second phase of asylum reforms which concerns changes to substantive EU asylum laws determining who qualifies for international protection, the procedures applicable to asylum claims and how asylum seekers are to be treated while their claims are being examined, as well as a proposal for a structured EU resettlement framework which is intended to reduce the flow of irregular migrants by providing safe and legal pathways to the EU for third country nationals who are in need of international protection. We suggested that the opt-in debate should consider the merits of the Commission’s reform package, the legal, practical and political feasibility of opting into some, but not all, of the reform proposals, and the wider implications for the UK once it has left the EU. We asked the Immigration Minister to: a) expand on his view that the Commission’s reform objectives, notably discouraging ‘asylum shopping’ and secondary movements between Member States, could equally be achieved by Member States acting unilaterally; b) flesh out his reasons for believing that the Commission’s choice of a directly applicable Regulation raises “profound implications for national sovereignty”; c) indicate whether there are any elements of the reform package which the Government would wish to replicate in its own domestic asylum laws or practices once the UK has left the EU; d) explain what impact differential asylum rules in the EU and the UK might be expected to have on the UK asylum system post-Brexit; and e) report back to us on other Member States’ initial reactions to the Commission’s reform package and on any progress made in negotiations.
European Parliament
