AIDA's annual report says there is an urgent need to make it possible for refugees to reach Europe in a safe and legal manner
The Asylum Information Database (AIDA), a project of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), has released its 2013/2014 annual report.
You can read the 119-page report Mind the Gap. An NGO Perspective on Challenges Challenges to Accessing Protection in the Common European Asylum System on the AIDA website here.
The report examines important developments in the EU in the field of asylum in 2013 and the first half of 2014, as well as presenting a number of findings from individual reports on 14 EU states drafted in the context of the AIDA project.
AIDA says the report illustrates the persistent gaps between the theory of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS), where people fleeing similar situations are treated alike, and the harsh realities facing asylum seekers in 15 EU Member States of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.
AIDA notes that 435,385 persons sought asylum in the EU in 2013, a 30 per cent increase compared to 2012.
The reporting period also saw a "particular and worrying trend" with the general increase in migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach Europe by sea.
Despite thousands of men, women and children arriving on boats in Italy, Malta and the Greek islands and the death of over 360 migrants, asylum seekers and refugees off the coast of Lampedusa in October 2013, AIDA says a true European response to the problem is lacking.
AIDA says that such incidents continue to illustrate the urgent need to make it possible for refugees to reach Europe in a safe and legal manner.
Michael Diedring, ECRE Secretary General, said at the launch of the report: "Creating more obstacles for refugees to reach the EU territory only benefits the business of smugglers. It is absurd that refugees are forced to pay thousands of euro in order to make a life-threatening trip to Europe because visa restrictions, carrier sanctions and border controls prevent them travelling legally, while many of them, such as Syrians and Eritreans, would be granted asylum and allowed to rebuild their lives in Europe if they survived the journey and made it to European soil. How long will the EU look the other way while their policies and unwillingness to create legal and safe avenues for refugees to access the EU are forcing people to risk their lives and contribute to filling the pockets of criminal smugglers?"
The report recommends that the use of legal avenues to access protection in the EU, including protected entry procedures and the use of humanitarian visas, must be further supported and promoted as a way to reduce the need for those in search of international protection to resort to unsafe and irregular ways to access the EU.