Nationals of Georgia and Moldova will now have to present stronger as well as clearer proof that their home country is not safe when applying for international protection in Germany, as the latter has decided to designate both countries as safe countries of origin.
Announcing the news, the German Ministry of Interior and Homeland said that there is no need to fear state prosecution and that these two countries can protect against non-state prosecution. For this reason, Georgia and Moldova have been placed on the safe countries of origin list.
With the classification of Georgia and Moldova as safe countries of origin, the asylum procedures will be accelerated, meaning that the authorities will take a decision faster than before as they no longer have to consider safety issues.
Moreover, with this classification, nationals of Georgia and Moldova whose asylum applications have been rejected will be required to leave the country within a short period of time.
“As a further step towards limiting irregular migration, we will, therefore, now classify Georgia and Moldova as safe countries of origin. Both countries want to become members of the European Union. In both countries, people are generally not threatened with political persecution,” Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, commenting on the changes.
In addition, Minister Faeser said that the number of people from other countries seeking protection has increased again, stressing that this requires clear measures to control irregular migration.
Following the decision of the federal cabinet to designate Georgia and Moldova as safe countries of origin, the Federal Government’s special representative for migration agreements, Joachim Stamp, also commented on the matter.
He said that over 10 per cent of rejected asylum applications come from Georgia and, at the same time, stressed that the authorities of both countries have expressed their intent to cooperate to overcome this phenomenon.
“The classification is a very important step to relieve our municipalities and courts and to significantly speed up asylum procedures. We can now implement targeted migration agreements with both countries,” Stamp added.
Data show that nationals of Georgia filed a total of 6,612 asylum applications in Germany from January to July 2023, while nationals of Moldova filed 1,910 asylum applications.
Most of the asylum applications filed by nationals of both countries were rejected, with the recognition rate for them being around 0.15 per cent.
In line with the current rules that Germany has, asylum seekers from safe countries are obliged to live in the reception facility until they receive a decision on their application. Moreover, asylum seekers from safe countries are not permitted to work during the process.
