EU refugee policy: Refugees rarely taken back

According to a media report, Germany hardly succeeds in sending refugees back to other EU countries if they have already applied for asylum there.

There are signposts in the entrance area to the central contact point for asylum seekers (ZASt) and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF)

BERLIN afp | Germany often fails in the readmission of refugees through EU countriesin which they have already submitted an application for asylum. As the Bild newspaper citing figures from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the authority submitted 68,709 readmission requests to other countries last year. Only 4,158 people were taken back.

The so-called Dublin rules are currently the basis for European asylum legislation. According to them, the state in which a refugee first sets foot on European soil is normally responsible for asylum applications. If the refugee travels further after arriving in the EU and applies for asylum again in another country, they can be sent back to the country of first reception.

The report of picture According to the report, the number of German requests for readmission last year reached a new record since the updated Dublin rules came into force in 2014: it was 62.5 percent higher than in 2021 (42,284). According to the report, the take-back rate was 6.05 percent, the lowest it had ever been.

According to the picture since 2014 a total of 444,849 applications for readmission to other countries have been made. However, only 46,838 people were actually taken back.

Especially the numbers from Greece and Italy are striking. In 2021, for example, Germany made 10,427 readmission requests to Greece, but only one refugee was actually returned. Italy was supposed to take back 6,623 refugees, only 287 actually returned.