Maltese MEP insists on changes to the Dublin regulation

Speaking during a debate last week in the European Parliament on a recent judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, Busuttil highlighted that border countries should not face alone responsibility for the guarding of Europe’s external borders.

“It is just not right that border countries alone have to shoulder the responsibility of guarding Europe's external borders. The EU's border countries are not the border police for Europe,” Busuttil stressed 

The ECHR had condemned Belguim and Greece of breach of human rights.
“The judgement handed down by the European Court of Justice is not as much a condemnation of the Belgian or the Greek authorities as much as it a condemnation of the Dublin regulation,” Busuttil said.

He added it was exactly the Dublin regulation that Belgium was applying when it returned an asylum seeker to Greece in breach of his human rights.

Busuttil went on to say that on the basis of this judgement, “it is now clear that transferring asylum seekers back to another EU State which is under great migratory pressure, constitutes a breach of human rights and is therefore in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Busuttil pointed to Germany and the UK as two of the Member States that have already suspended returns but he insisted that what was now needed was to go a step further.

“What we need is to change the Dublin regulation, sooner rather than later”.

The Dublin regulation presumes that the country to which the asylum seeker is to be returned will itself support the individual's human rights and will determine the application for refugee status in accordance with the standards of international law.

In its ruling, the ECHR found that the Belgian authorities had violated the rights of an asylum seeker, an Afghan national, by sending him to Greece using the regulation.