International protection: standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons and the content of the protection granted. Recast
Ministers continued work on the establishment of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) on the basis of a discussion paper which presents the state of play in relation to the discussions regarding a package of six legislative proposals which EU Member States have committed to adopt by 2012.
It relates to the following proposals:
- the proposal for the extension of the Long-Term Residents Directive to beneficiaries of international protection;
- this proposal for the recast of the ‘Qualification’ Directive;
- the recast of the EURODAC Regulation;
- the recast of the ‘Dublin’ Regulation;
- the establishment of a European Asylum Support Office (EASO);
- the amendment of Decision No 573/2007/ECestablishing the European Refugee Fund for the period 2008 to 2013 by removing funding for certain Community actions and altering the limit for funding such actions (already adopted).
As regards the proposal for the recast of the ‘Qualification’ Directive, the discussion document indicates that the Spanish Presidency had done excellent work on this and that the current Belgian Presidency was able to finalize the technical deliberations on this proposal at the Asylum Working Party on 20-21 October. At the SCIFA (Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum) meeting on 22 October, the two main open issues were discussed, namely:
- the definition of family members and
- the modalities and extent of approximation of the statuses of refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection.
On the basis of the outcome of this debate, the Presidency aims at further defining the position of Council during the coming weeks, in view of engaging, by the end of November, in first informal contacts with the Parliament. The rapporteur presented her draft report in the LIBE Committee on 11 October. This way forward should allow for a swift agreement in first reading.