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Gregori: EUAA will play an important role in the implementation of the migration pact

by AI | 31.Mar 2025 | Europe in brief AI

Executive Director of the EU Agency for Asylum Nina Gregori is convinced that shortening the asylum procedures, as envisaged among other things by the European Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in May 2024, will not jeopardize the rights of applicants.

Executive Director of the EU Agency for Asylum Nina Gregori. Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA

Brdo pri Kranju – The EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA) will play an important role in the implementation of the migration and asylum pact, said the agency’s Executive Director Nina Gregori in a Friday conversation for STA. The planned shortening of asylum procedures brought by the pact, according to her, will not jeopardize the rights of applicants.

The EU member states adopted the European migration and asylum pact in May 2024, which focuses on the so-called mandatory solidarity among members. The new legislation will also allow for the screening of third-country nationals at the EU’s external borders, thus potentially leading to faster processing of asylum applications and, in the event of rejection, the accelerated return to countries of origin.

EUAA is important for the implementation of the new pact because it prepares guidelines and tools and conducts training, Gregori said. The agency will later play an operational role. It already does this in several countries, as it helps them with housing capacities, interpreters, or conducting interviews with asylum seekers. Gregori emphasized that final decisions regarding asylum procedures are always the exclusive competence of the member states.

According to the director of EUAA, the commission is also preparing a list of safe countries of origin and a list of safe third countries, which could help countries to “handle procedures more quickly and efficiently,” Gregori guarantees.

Changes in accordance with the pact will especially affect potential asylum seekers from the so-called safe countries. Gregori assures that procedures will continue to be individual. In the case of determining the actual risk to the applicant, a regular procedure can proceed normally in the country where the individual submitted the application.

Gregori emphasized that exceptions are made even in the case of safe countries. These already apply to vulnerable groups, such as minors, but can also include individual endangered social groups, such as LGBTQ+ people or journalists, said Gregori, who attended Friday’s meeting of interior ministers of the Brdo Process in Slovenia. (March 31)