EU looking at plans to change asylum claim regulations

The European Union is drawing up plans to change rules on where refugees can claim asylum in an effort to spread their resettlement across the 28 nation bloc.

It wants to scrap the so-called Dublin regulation, by which asylum is claimed in the first country of arrival. The move, expected to be put forward by the European Commission in March, will face opposition from member states such as the UK who have opted-out of rehousing thousands of refugees.

The EU wants to change the regulation as a result of the Syrian refugee crisis last year, when more than 1m people arrived in Greece and Italy alone and the system failed to cope with such a large influx.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that the union had two months to stop the crisis completely dismantling its border-free travel zone, known as Schengen

“The March European council [meeting of EU leaders] will be the last moment to see if our strategy works,” he told members of the European parliament.

“If it doesn’t we will face grave consequences such as the collapse of Schengen.”

The Financial Times reported that Britain was likely to oppose any changes. It said since 2003, the Dublin regulations have allowed Britain to deport more than 12,000 asylum seekers to other countries in the EU.

The UK is not a member of the Schengen area, so any changes to the regulation would make it harder to send back refugees. It has been under pressure to take in more people left homeless by the crises in Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Kosovo.