COMECE welcomes the publication of the 2019 Asylum Office report and calls EU Member States to respect international law obligations with regards to anyone looking for international protection in their territories.
Syrian refugees arriving in Europe. (Photo: Fishman64/Shutterstock)
The report contains an overview of key indicators regarding the situation of refugees in Europe. While the number of applicants for international protection diminished in 2018, the report shows that 39% of them got a positive decision. According to the EASO statistics, the highest relative increase involved Colombian, Georgian, Venezuelan and Turkish citizens.
International protection is a concrete solidarity tool towards those persons who are suffering persecutions or violence in their own country. In his 2016 visit to Lesbos, Pope Francis called people and institutions to never forget that migrants “rather than simply being a statistic, are first of all persons who have faces, names and individual stories”.
COMECE encourages EU Member States to place human dignity at the center of their asylum policies and judicial/administrative decisions. “If Europe still wishes to call itself ‘Christian’, now is its chance to prove it through active charity [towards refugees]”, stated Mgr. Jean-Claude Hollerich SJ, President of COMECE, while visiting refugees camps in Lesbos as member of a Vatican delegation led by Card. Konrad Krajewski.
This topic was addressed during the last COMECE Working Group on Migration & Asylum, which included discussions on quick and safe disembarkation of rescued people on both sides of the Mediterranean, and the European Humanitarian Visas.