End of the Dubliners project – final conference in Rome
Rome, 28 April 2010.
The results of the Dubliners project (link to the project) were presented at the final conference in Rome. Officials from Sweden, Hungary and Italy, and representatives of partner NGOs highlighted the difficulties in the application of the Dublin regulation.
The project was coordinated by the Italian Council for Refugees (CIR), in cooperation with the Ministries of Interior and 6 organizations form EU Member States, including Hungarian Helsinki Committee. Through 75 interviews with asylum seekers before and after being transferred from one state to another, the project highlights the serious flaws of the “Dublin system” and the human suffering it causes. (link to the final report and the summary)
EU governments and the European Parliament are currently negotiating a Commission’s proposal to revise the Dublin Regulation. This proposed reform, opposed by some countries, is supported by partner NGOs and ECRE, as it is considered as a positive first step in improving a system that is currently inefficient, dysfunctional and does not respect the rights of people in need of international protection. The organizations welcome the special attention given to children and other dependent members of the family. In particular, children who have arrived alone to Europe would have to be reunited with their relatives present in other Member States if this is in the child’s best interest. The final report of the project is available here.