Germany wants tougher EU asylum rules for west Balkans nationals

Germany is calling on the European Union to tighten asylum rules for western Balkans nationals by designating the states of the region "safe countries of origin", a government spokesman said Friday.

As Germany grapples with a massive influx of refugees and economic migrants, it said the EU must take action to ensure stable, secure countries keep their nationals at home.

"The states of the western Balkans are making their way toward Europe, some of them have ambitions of applying for membership (of the European Union)," government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.

"They are actually by definition states in which there can be no political oppression or civil war -- that is, situations that would give grounds for protection."

The list would include countries that were ravaged by war in the 1990s such as Kosovo, where German peacekeepers are still deployed and which does not have its own currency.
At the same media briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said Berlin would "wait for a proposal from the (European) Commission which, according to everything we read in the media, would like to have a single European policy".

"It will be carefully considered," Schaefer said of any change in policy for the western Balkans.

Germany, which expects to see a record 800,000 asylum applications this year, is calling for a central EU list of safe countries of origin to which nationals can be returned and binding quotas for EU member states to take in refugees.

Some 40 percent of the 200,000 asylum applications made in Germany between January and July came from nationals from Serbia, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia although they had only a minimal chance of success.

Their presence has overwhelmed German authorities processing the new arrivals and held up applications by people fleeing violence in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq who have a much greater likelihood to be granted asylum.
Source: AFP