EU unveils plans to overhaul asylum system in an attempt to address chaotic influx of refugees

The European Union has unveiled plans to overhaul its asylum system in an attempt to address the chaotic influx of refugees through a centrally-managed claims mechanism.

In a policy paper the European Commission set out two reform options, including one that rips up the principle that northern EU countries such as Britain can deport asylum seekers to their port of first entry.

The other would leave the system staying largely as it is but with an emergency clause to allow a country faced with a sudden influx to share out refugees.

The first option is likely to be seized upon by groups campaigning to pull Britain out of the EU.

They have already claimed that the Commission has plans to rip-up the so-called Dublin Regulation but have suggested they are delaying the move until after June’s referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

“This report makes for alarming reading,” said the Tory Brexit supporting minister Priti Patel. “It's clearer than ever that we need to take back control of how we manage our immigration and asylum policy.”

But Downing Street insisted that it had “lobbied hard” and “succeeded” in attempts to preserve the rules that has allowed Britain to send 12,000 migrants to EU countries since 2003.

“After intense lobbying, it is clear that the existing approach under the Dublin system remains on the table and the Commission will demonstrate that it is likely to preserve the current arrangements for the first EU member state of arrival being responsible for an asylum claim,” said a Government spokesperson.

The proposals come in the wake of last year’s wave of more than a million refugees into Europe, mainly from war-torn regions like Syria. Most of them landed on unguarded beaches in Greece and Italy, where overwhelmed officials were unable to process their claims, eventually letting them continue their journey unchecked towards richer northern European countries like Germany and Sweden.

"The current system is not working,” Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said, pointing out that different national approaches had fuelled asylum shopping and irregular migration. “We need a sustainable system for the future, based on common rules, a fairer sharing of responsibility, and safe legal channels for those who need protection to get it in the EU."

The Commission suggested two paths to reforming the rules. The first would reshape the system, with all asylum seekers being shared out across the EU on a quota basis, regardless of where they first arrived. The quotas would be assigned according to a distribution key taking into account the country‘s size, wealth and capacity to absorb them.

This is what both frontline states Greece and Italy want, as well as the main recipients, Germany and Sweden. But it is fiercely opposed by eastern European countries, who have resisted efforts for them to take in a greater share of refugees.

The other option would be less drastic, tweaking the existing Dublin rules, but still sharing out asylum seekers on a quota basis through a “corrective fairness mechanism" if a country is overwhelmed by a sudden influx.

Mr Timmermans said he hoped the European Parliament and EU governments would agree on a legislative proposal for changing the rules before the summer. In the long term, he suggested that the European Asylum Support Office could be tasked with processing asylum claims, setting up a "single and centralised decision-making process," harmonising procedures and ensuring a "fair sharing of responsibility”.

Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope said he still backed the Dublin rules, but accepted that the countries on the frontline needed help to cope with processing. "The Dublin system stopped working because countries stopped applying the rules,” he said. "Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel we need the system that we have in place to work more effectively.”

Amnesty International said the asylum reforms had to lead to a fairer distribution and better conditions for refugees. “Persevering with a system that has stranded 50,000 refugees in Greece in dire conditions is nothing short of madness,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Director for Europe and Central Asia.