ZAGREB, March 8, 2019 – There is still no consensus among European Union member states about reforming the European asylum system, the topic that has been on the agenda for the past three years, Croatian Interior Minister Davor Božinović said in Brussels on Thursday.
“After three years of talks we can say that the idea about a set of migration laws, including the asylum system, has failed, at least in the term of the present Commission,” Božinović said after a meeting of the EU interior ministers.
Carmen Dan, Romania’s Minister of the Interior and the president of the Council of the European Union, also said no progress was made in sharing out the burden of asylum seekers which would replace the existing Dublin regulation.
The Commission and several countries are calling for the adoption of the parts of the package of laws on which consent has been reached, such as setting up a European asylum agency and improving a database with migrant fingerprints.
“I am not sure that a common position has been reached on this either,” Božinović said.
The reform is at a stalemate because some member states do not wish to take in asylum seekers, not even in cases of a sudden migrant influx to share a burden with countries on external EU borders.
More news on the migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.
