As one of the main services offered by “Hope for Children” CRC Policy Center in the shelters is Child Protection, some legal counsellors are working hard to follow each child’s case by offering them legal help. Being asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors entails that they have the right to apply for family reunification all over the European Union. And this is done, in Cyprus and all the other EU member states, by following the Dublin Procedure. The European body responsible for dealing with the Dublin cases is the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).
First, I would like to briefly explain how the procedure works. The Dublin Regulation says that the Dublin country that first received and registered the migrant at its border or in which they first applied for asylum, should be the one looking at their case. This means that the first step of the relevant authorities is to understand which country is responsible for examining your application. Once this is determined, the Dublin Procedure can start.
For what concerns minors, the Dublin Regulation is very strict and sets that the Member States should act taking into consideration the best interests of the child (Article 6). The child’s best interests include:
- family reunification;
- the minor’s well-being and social development;
- his/her safety and security;
- his/her point of view in accordance with his/her age and maturity.
Also, in the case of unaccompanied minors, the State should take appropriate action to identify their family members (relatives) who are placed in other Member States.
In particular, when it comes to unaccompanied minors, the responsible Member State for the Dublin procedure is the one where the family member is staying. Family reunification works when the relevant authorities ascertain that:
- there are existing family links;
- the relative can take care of the minor;
- this represents the best interest of the minor (Article 8).
As the Dublin Procedure involves more than one State everyone can imagine that the process for an application can take some time, however, the Dublin States have the obligation to work effectively, without delays and most importantly with collaboration. Their work should be based on mutual trust, transparency, and cooperation; for these reasons, the regulation is very demanding when it comes to modalities and time limits (Ex. The transfer of the applicant should happen within six months of the acceptance of the request).
The Asylum Service reports that in Cyprus only 83 outgoing Dublin requests for minors were accepted out of the 261 sent in 2022; while there was only one incoming request, and it was accepted. In general, the number of successful transfers carried out by Cyprus in 2022 was 119.
In conclusion, the Dublin Regulation is not immune to criticism as it seems to work well in theory but is often inefficient in practice. The main reason for this is that the “border countries”, in which most of the asylum seekers arrive (such as Italy, Spain and Greece), are forced to deal with a huge number of requests while the other European countries are not willing to take responsibility and they often apply deterrence policies towards immigration rather than integration policies. This mechanism leads to other problems such as inadequate reception conditions, overcrowding, an increasing number of request rejections and anti-immigration policies. Moreover, we have to consider that asylum seekers are deprived of the privilege to choose where to live and build their future. And, they often suffer from stress, loneliness and a sense of uncertainty due to the extremely long waiting that the Dublin Procedure entails. This is why many people think appropriate changes should be made to improve the effectiveness of the regulation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Asylum In Europe, “Cyprus Report 2022”: https://asylumineurope.org/reports/country/cyprus/asylum-procedure/procedures/dublin/
EUR-Lex, “the Dublin Regulation”: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02013R0604-20130629
Sensus Journal, “The Dublin Regulation, A Nightmare for Asylum Seekers”: https://sensusjournal.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/the-dublin-regulation-a-nightmare-for-asylum-seekers/
UNHCR, “the Dublin Procedure”: https://help.unhcr.org/cyprus/applying-for-asylum/the-dublin-procedure/