The Council looked, on the basis of a presidency paper, at the
state-of-play of negotiations on the various legislative proposals
concerning the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).
Ministers instructed the Council preparatory bodies to
continue their work to reach an agreement at Council level and with
the European Parliament as soon as possible.
The situation on the various files can be described as
follows:
- The qualification directive
providing for better, clearer and more
harmonised standards for identifying persons in need of
international protection was adopted in November 2011 and entered
into force in January 2012.
- The asylum procedures and reception conditions
directives: revised proposals were tabled by the
Commission on 1 June 2011. Significant progress has been made on
the two instruments, in particular on the reception conditions
directives where negotiations with the European Parliament are
expected to start soon. The main outstanding issues here concern
the grounds for detention and access to labour market for asylum
applicants.
- The Dublin II regulation
establishes the procedures for determining the
member state responsible for examining an application for
international protection. Further progress has been made on almost
all aspects, in particular concerning a proposal to introduce a
mechanism for early warning, preparedness and crisis
management.
- The Eurodac regulation: discussions on amendments to
the rules regulating this fingerprint database are on hold pending
a revised Commission proposal. Member states have requested
additional provisions which would allow their law enforcement
authorities to access the Eurodac central database under strict
conditions on data protection for the purposes of fighting
terrorism and organised crime.
Two other agreements related to the CEAS have been
achieved so far. They concern the long term residence directive
and the creation of the European Asylum Support
Office (EASO) which started operations in spring
2011.
In addition, the Council took a decision without
discussion which establishes common EU resettlement priorities for
2013 as well as new rules on EU funding for resettlement activities
carried out by member states.