The European Union has published a list of seven countries it considers “safe”, in a bid to speed up migrant returns by making it harder for citizens of those nations to claim asylum in the bloc.
The European Commission said it was proposing to designate Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia as “safe countries of origin”.
The move is set to allow EU governments to process asylum applications filed from citizens of those countries more quickly – by introducing a presumption that such applications lack merit.
“Many member states are facing a significant backlog of asylum applications, so anything we can do now to support faster asylum…