Navigation
|
Asylum
European asylum policy, a matter of common interest for the member states ever since the Treaty of Maastricht, is based essentially on instruments with no legal weight, e.g. the London Resolutions of 1992 on manifestly unfounded applications for asylum and the principle of "host third countries", or on international conventions such as the Geneva Convention of 1951 on the status of refugees. Within the framework of the Schengen agreements, the member states signed on 15 June 1990 the Dublin Convention on determining the State responsible for examining an asylum application presented in one of the Member States of the Union. The Convention came into force on 1 September 1997. This issue had not been settled by the Geneva Convention. Various implementing measures were then adopted by the committee set up by the Convention. A comprehensive strategy going beyond the Commission and Council action plan of 3 December 1998 is needed. A task force on asylum and migration has therefore been set up by the Council to meet this need.
As more people try to enter the Union from outside, either to escape war, persecution and natural disasters or to carve out a better future, EU governments are developing common solutions to shared challenges. Minimum standards, measures and procedures are being drawn up for asylum seekers. These determine how and where applications should be processed, the status of people granted asylum and the role of national authorities in meeting these responsibilities.
The European Union´s common position of 15 October 2003, which recommends the provisional closing of Chapter 24, explicitly points out that Bulgaria strictly fulfills the requirements of European standards in asylum matters. In the process of legislation alignment, the National Assembly passed on 16 May 2003 a new Law on Asylum and Refugees, which is aligned with the requirements of the Geneva Convention of 1951 and its Protocol of 1967 concerning the status of refugees as well as with the European legislation in this area. The law provides to all candidates access to procedures for granting a refugee status as well as a possibility for court appeals. The Bulgarian law is aligned with the rules and criteria defining the states wherein asylum requests are lodged as well as with the EURODAC requirements. It must be noted that Bulgaria has formally pledged to adopt all new acquis in the asylum area. Following recommendations for changes of Articles 13 and 16 of the newly adopted Law on Asylum and Refugees, Bulgaria created a working group, which works on fully aligning the law with the Geneva Convention of 1951.
The new law provides for the creation of the Agency for Refugees. The Agency has its own database, containing all documents and data related to the identity of asylum seekers, which have become known during the procedure. The number of asylum seekers in Bulgaria remains limited. Between June 2002 and June 2003, 1,631 asylum requests were lodged. The Agency manages the work of the two refugee´s centers and Bulgaria is committed to building two more transit centers for refugees by 2005.
|
Downloads
|