Europe EU Parliament votes in favor of outsourcing asylum procedures
The European Parliament has voted with a right-wing majority in favor of making it easier to hand over responsibility for asylum seekers to non-EU countries.
17.12.2025, 13:12
SDA
EU countries should therefore also be allowed to deport migrants to countries with which they have no connection. Asylum seekers should then apply for protection there and not in Europe.
The majority of MEPs from right-of-center groups voted in favour of the proposal. The Left, Greens and Social Democrats voted against it.
The Parliament is thus in favor of a proposal by the European Commission. Most of the member states had also previously approved the amendment to the law.
Negotiations on the project are due to begin later today in order to clarify the final points of contention between the EU member states and the European Parliament. Those involved assume that an agreement could be reached within a few hours.
How does the EU deal with unaccompanied children and young people?
One of the issues still to be clarified is how to deal with children and young people in asylum procedures. The EU Commission's original proposal included an exception for minors. According to this, they should not be able to be deported to a third country with which they have no connection solely on the basis of an existing agreement. In the case of minors, such a connection would have to exist. The EU member states also followed this position.
In the European Parliament's position, there is now a restriction to this exception. Children and young people are exempt "unless there are reasonable grounds for believing that they pose a threat to national security or public order", according to a statement from the relevant parliamentary committee.
Greens had called for Merz to speak out against right-wing majority
There was already criticism of the vote in the run-up to the vote. In Germany, the Greens had demanded that Chancellor Friedrich Merz put his foot down against EU migration decisions with a right-wing majority. "I expect the Federal Chancellor and CDU leader to stand by his word and not cooperate with far-right parties at European level," said Erik Marquardt, head of the Greens in the EU Parliament.
The conservative EPP group in the European Parliament, which also includes Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU and CSU), wants to tighten asylum policy as quickly and extremely as possible and is willing to cooperate with "right-wing extremists, climate deniers and Putin lobbyists" to achieve this.
The EPP Group argues that it does not actively cooperate with right-wing extremists on legislative projects. The so-called firewall is also in place at European level, EPP leader Manfred Weber has said in the past.
Vote on safe countries of origin too
In addition to the so-called third country solution, the EU Parliament also voted in favor of an EU-wide list of safe countries of origin. According to the proposal, this would allow people to be deported more quickly to Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt, for example. Kosovo, Colombia and the South Asian states of India and Bangladesh are also to be added to the list.
In principle, countries that are candidates for EU membership should also be considered safe. These would include Albania, Montenegro and Turkey. Representatives of the Parliament and the EU countries are also due to meet today for negotiations.
