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 (current proposal
being examined): 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.