28.02.2014 Germany wants to declare Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina “safe countries of origin”

Schäfer (2014) reports on the plans of the German federal government to declare the Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina “safe countries of origin”. As a result of this, asylum applications from these countries can be processed more quickly in the future. The letter of the German federal ministry of the interior states: “that in all these countries ( … ) neither political persecution nor torture or inhuman or degrading treatment takes place and no threat by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict.” Left-wing politicians like Ulla Jelpke demanded the deputies of the federal states to withhold the authorization for this policy. The new policy is said to primarily affect Rroma: “As a matter of fact, “90 percent of these people are Rroma, who are fleeing systematic discrimination and hazardous exclusion and poverty.” In the countries concerned, Rroma are exposed to “multiple forms of discrimination, taken together they certainly justify refugee protection”. But this protection “is sacrificed on the altar of a populist debate”, said Jelpke.” While proponents of deportation rely on country analyses that state none or only very minimal discrimination against minorities in countries like Serbia, Macedonia or Bosnia-Herzegovina, proponents of the asylum seekers state the exact opposite. Subjective experiences, which can rarely be proved with documents, usually are dismissed in comparison to the official analyses that assess the social situation in a country. Bernd Mesovic from Pro Asly criticises that restrictive asylum practices are already in place now and serious examinations of the reasons for flight are not applied (compare Tiroler Tageszeitung Online 2014, Die Welt 2014, Zeit 2014).