Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco, and Tunisia will be considered safe countries of origin in the EU in the future. This has been decided by the EU Parliament. The list is binding for all member states for the first time. EU accession candidates are also considered safe countries of origin. For asylum seekers, the new regulation means that decisions on their cases will be made more quickly. Opposition in the European Parliament came from the Greens, the Left, and parts of the Social Democrats.
The regulation will come into force with the Common European Asylum System in June 2026. According to the Media Service Integration, applications from asylum seekers from countries with a protection rate of less than 20 percent will then also be processed in an expedited procedure.
In Germany, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), there are currently ten countries on the list of safe countries of origin: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Senegal, and Serbia. In the coalition agreement, the CDU and SPD had committed in 2025 to expand this list to include Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and India.
The concept of safe countries of origin has existed in Germany since 1993. Asylum applications from refugees from such countries can be rejected as “manifestly unfounded.” They only have a chance of staying if they can prove individual persecution. Refugees from such countries must live in initial reception facilities for longer and are not allowed to work. They also have less time to appeal against the rejection of their asylum application, according to the Federal Agency for Civic Education.
At the end of 2025, the Bundestag and Bundesrat also decided that the federal government can update the list of safe countries of origin by means of a statutory order in future. The approval of the Bundestag and Bundesrat will then no longer be required. However, this only applies to protection under the Geneva Refugee Convention and subsidiary protection. The actual right to asylum is not affected.
The rule that EU accession candidates are also considered safe theoretically includes Turkey. However, there are many asylum applications from Turkish citizens. According to the Federal Statistical Office, Turkish citizens ranked third among asylum seekers in 2025 with 14,700 applicants, behind Afghanistan and Syria. The recognition rate for refugees from Turkey was 8.1 percent.
By Brigitte Gisel
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