Common European Asylum System in a Changing World

the Commission or on the initiative of a Member State. The procedure suffered from democratic deficit because the European Parliament was only consulted. The European Council was summoned at a special meeting inTampere in October 1999 in order to elaborate on political guidelines in the area of freedom, security and justice. The conclusions of this European Council meeting are known as the “Tampere programme” . The European Council declared that it “agreed to work towards establishing a Common European Asylum System, based on the full and inclusive application of the Geneva Convention, thus ensuring that nobody is sent back to persecution, i.e. maintaining the principle of non-refoulement.” Moreover, the European Council was more ambitious because it proclaimed that in the longer term, the European Community should lead to a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for those who are granted asylum (not only minimum standards mentioned in the Amsterdam Treaty). Under the Amsterdam Treaty, the appropriate measures on asylum were supposed to be adopted by 2004. Almost all legal instruments were adopted within this period except for the Asylum Procedures Directive which was approved in 2005. The secondary legislation adopted in the first phase is as follows (each piece of legislation was proposed by the Commission): • the Eurodac Regulation (2000) – Council Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000 of 11 December 2000 concerning the establishment of ‘Eurodac’ for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention. • the Temporary Protection Directive (2001) – Council Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001 on minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons and on measures promoting a balance of efforts between Member States in receiving such persons and bearing the consequences thereof. • the Dublin II Regulation (2003) – Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 established the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national. • the Reception Conditions Directive (2003) – Council Directive 2003/9/EC of 27 January 2003 laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers. • the QualificationDirective (2004) – Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 April 2004 on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third-country nationals or stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection and the content of the protection granted. • the Asylum Procedures Directive (2005) – Council Directive 2005/85/EC of 1 December 2005 on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status. 4.2 The second phase (2008–2013) – developing CEAS It was already mentioned above that the European Council had a vision expressed in theTampere Programme to go beyond the minimum standards on asylum and offer a higher degree of protection in the longer term. As a follow-up to the Tampere Programme, the European Council approved the “Hague Programme” for strengthening freedom, security

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