Implementation of Safe Country Concepts

In response to the CJEU ruling forbidding exceptions based on categories of persons, the Dutch asylum authority stopped applying the safe countries of origin concept on 5 August 2025 to Armenia, Brazil, Ghana, Jamaica, Morocco, Senegal, Serbia and Tunisia. However, on 23 September 2025, the Minister for Asylum and Migration communicated its decision in a letter to the House of Representative to suspend temporarily the application of the entire national list of safe countries of origin until an EU-wide list of safe countries of origin comes into effect with the entry into application of the Pact. This means that the accelerated procedure is no longer applied to applicants from previously designated safe countries of origin, although the Minister highlighted that the determining authority may still prioritise the processing of such applications.

On 3 December 2025, Belgium updated its list of safe countries of origin by Royal Decree. It added Morocco to the list and removed Moldova and India.

No other revisions to national lists of safe countries of origin and safe third countries have been observed in the reference period.

Table 1 presents countries implementing a list of safe countries of origin, and Table 3 presents countries applying the safe third country concept. The information is presented alphabetically by country of origin/third country (rows) and by reporting EU+ country (columns). The blue squares indicate the designation of the country of origin/third country as safe.

Information in the tables also indicates the total number of EU+ countries which apply the concepts and presents the number of countries which are considered safe countries by EU+ country. EU Member States designated as safe are not taken into account in the count.

For countries not bound by the recast APD – namely Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland – a similar national legal framework applies. References to these countries should be read in relation to the applicable national legal framework.

Table 2 provides an overview of EU+ countries that implement exceptions to the safe country of origin concept based on geographical areas or specific applicant profiles from a given country of origin. The overview reflects the information found in the laws and regulations of the countries. However, EU Member States which include exceptions in their legislation may not apply them in practice following CJEU jurisprudence1 which declared the practice to be unlawful under the recast Asylum Procedures Directive. This has been the case in the Netherlands, where the government temporarily suspended the application of the entire concept pending the introduction of the Pact. This does not apply to EU+ countries applying exceptions, including Denmark, Norway and Switzerland, as they do not fall under the jurisdiction of the CJEU.