When viewed through the lens of EU asylum policy, the world outside the European Union appears to be steadily transforming into a wonderland of ‘safe countries’.

On Monday (8 December), EU member states agreed their position on two pieces of asylum legislation based on the concept of ‘safe countries’.

The first introduces an EU-wide list of countries of origin that are considered ‘safe’.

The second allows EU member states to shift responsibility for processing asylum claims to ‘safe third countries’ with which applicants have no connection, paving the way for arrangements similar to the UK–Rwanda deal.

The announcement has been accompanied by high hopes and a celebratory tone.

Using the platform provided by the Danish presidency of the European Council, Rasmus Stoklund, Denmark’s minister for immigration and integration, praised the legislation as a “milestone for the EU’s asylum policy”.

Yet these measures, embedded in the Pact on Migration and Asylum, primarily reveal the EU’s inability to govern migration in a spirit of solidarity. Not only are they conducive to human rights violations, but they also tend to produce the opposite effect to that which they promise.

Safety as a convenient fiction

The current proposal for an EU-wide list of ‘safe countries of origin’ features Egypt, Bangladesh, India, Colombia, Tunisia, Morocco and Kosovo, as well as the EU candidate countries Albania, Bosnia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.

Critics have pointed to the systematic repression of political dissidents in Egypt; arbitrary detentions and crackdowns on political opposition in Tunisia; government violence against ethnic minorities and enforced disappearances in Bangladesh; and violence by armed groups, along with abuses by security forces, in Colombia.

But agreeing on an EU-wide list of countries that are, by all standards, actually safe would be pointless.

Contrary to the name, the safe country of origin list is not primarily based on safety considerations. Instead, such a ‘safe country’ list is only useful if the safety of the countries is contested.

Motivations behind the ‘safe country’ list

Some countries — such as Colombia and Bangladesh — have presumably been selected because of the sharp increase in asylum applicants from these nationalities in some EU states.

Listing north African countries may also reflect an attempt to legitimise the EU’s recent efforts to establish cooperation on migration control.

Placing all EU candidate countries on the list may be considered necessary to prevent onward movement from these states in the event of membership, and to forestall any debates about their fit within the "area of freedom, security and justice".

With exceptions such as Turkey and Moldova, many EU states already consider these countries "safe countries of origin".

Therefore, the adoption of an EU-wide list, rather than an attempt to innovate, may be seen as a way to harmonise and to legitimise existing practices.

An (un)safe fourth-country policy

The legislation that allows for the extension of the ‘safe third country’ policy is as well particularly puzzling. In practice, it enables migration deals that have been discussed and failed to implement in Europe since the 1980s.

Their application overseas has generated a history of human rights violations (as the Australian ‘Pacific Solution’ illustrates), has increased rather than reduced dangerous journeys (as the Israeli model shows), and has consistently failed to meet expectations (as the US attempts to externalise asylum demonstrate).

The main characteristic of these policies is that no connection between the asylum seeker and the ‘safe’ country would be required.

They therefore not only expand but fundamentally transform the ‘safe third country’ principle, to the point that they are better described as an ‘(un)safe fourth country policy’.

A predictable failure

The EU’s new asylum legislation on ‘safe country policies’ forms part of a system whose aim is to reject and deport more quickly.

Yet this system is likely to produce the opposite effect to that which it promises.

Rather than ‘fighting irregular migration’, these policies tend to generate irregularity.

Instead of easing pressure on states, they oblige administrations to pursue policies that are not implementable, as exemplified by the UK–Rwanda deal.

And unilaterally declaring countries to be ‘safe’ does nothing to increase or speed up the return of people.

These policies have not only substantial shortcomings in achieving their stated objectives, but also as a political instrument for countering the rise of anti-immigration forces.

They do not weaken anti-immigration parties; they reinforce their narrative and strengthen them.

Most importantly, by eroding the practical possibility for refugees to obtain protection, they undermine the very values that European governments claim to defend.

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