EU will drastically reduce asylum claims from 7 countries

The European Union on Thursday said it would drastically reduce asylum claims from seven nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia by considering them safe countries of origin, prompting widespread outrage from human rights groups on International Migrants’Day.

- BY SAM MCNEIL

An agreement between the European Parliament and European Council, or the group of the 27 EU heads of state, said the countries would be considered safe if they lack “relevant circumstances, such as indiscriminate violence in the context of an armed conflict.”

Asylum requests by people from Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Kosovo, India, Morocco and Tunisia will be “fast-tracked, with applicants having to prove that this provision should not apply to them,” read the announcement of the agreement. “The list can be expanded in the future under the EU's ordinary legislative procedure.”