EU lists seven ‘safe’ nations of origin, tightening asylum rules

The European Union on Wednesday published a list of seven countries it considers "safe", in a bid to speed up migrant returns by making it harder for citizens of those nations to claim asylum in the bloc.

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The European Commission said it was proposing to designate Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia as "safe countries of origin".

The move, criticised by rights groups, is set to allow EU govern-ments to process asylum applications filed from citizens of those countries more quickly — by in-troducing a presumption that such claims lack merit. "Many mem-ber states are facing a significant backlog of asylum applications, so anything we can do now to sup-port faster asylum decisions is es-sential," said Magnus Brunner, the EU’s commissioner for migration.