Author
According to Article 12(2-bis) of the Procedure Decree, the CNDA may designate countries for the nationals of which the personal interview can be omitted, on the basis that subsidiary protection can be granted (see Regular Procedure: Personal Interview). Currently, the CNDA has not yet designated such countries.
Statistics on decisions regarding asylum applications in 2023 show high recognition rates for certain nationalities, in particular around 90% for Afghans, 92% for Ukrainians, 93% for Somalis, 84% for Russians, 93% for Venezuelans, 87% for Malians, 84% for Iraqis.[1]
The issue of the Safe Country of Origin decrees has directly affected the treatment and prerogatives of asylum seekers whose nationalities are indicated by the decrees.
Egypt and Bangladesh, among the top ten main countries of origin of applicants for international protection in 2023 – with 18,295 and 23,450 asylum applications respectively – have been included in the list of safe countries of origin by the Ministerial Decree of 7 May 2024, which will lead to applications to be treated in the accelerated procedure. Due to the reduced procedural guarantees it entails, this change will most likely also further affect recognition rates.
In practice, as already highlighted in the section regarding Registration, some nationalities face more difficulties in accessing the asylum procedure, both at hotspots and at Questure. ASGI has reported in 2021 as in previous years, that people from Tunisia were notified expulsion orders despite having expressly requested international protection with the practice of the “double information paper”.[2] Serious criticalities in access to the procedure, due to lack of information provision and legal assistance as well as de facto detention, were reported by ASGI with specific regard to Tunisians arriving in the island of Pantelleria, where landed migrants are channelled in hotspot-like procedures (see in Detention).[3]
On 30 March 2023, the ECHR condemned Italy for the violation of Article 4 Protocol 4 for the removal to Tunisia of 4 Tunisian nationals who were removed to Tunisia after being placed in de facto detention in the Lampedusa hotspot without proper regard to their individual situation.[4]
[1] NCA, Response to the FOIA request presented by ASGI.
[2] ASGI reports that with the practice of the “double information paper” implemented in Lampedusa’s hotspot, police authorities have foreign nationals – and especially those coming from Tunisia – sign a second information paper in which they formally “renounce” international protection declaring that there are no impediments to their repatriation, even if they had previously expressed their will to request international protection. Rights on the skids. The experiment of quarantine ships and main points of criticism, ASGI, March 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3tWEK25.
[3] ASGI, La frontiera di Pantelleria: una sospensione del diritto. Report del sopralluogo giuridico di ASGI, June 2021, available in Italian at: https://bit.ly/3tcSwyD.
[4] J. and others v. Italy, Application no. 21329/18, 30 March 2023, available at HUDOC: bit.ly/42TBqVD.