Belgium Declines Over 70% of Repeated Asylum Requests Since Beginning of 2017

Belgium has declined 74.4 percent of all subsequent asylum applications it received in the first five months of 2017.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In three cases out of four, the repeat dossiers sent by asylum seekers in 2017 did not contain any new elements and therefore risked rejection, La Derniere Heure newspaper reported on Monday, citing Damien Dermaux, the spokesman for the Belgian Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS).

According to Dermaux, some of the subsequent requests looked as if the applicants believed that they were filing an appeal of the preceding decision, for which there is a separate procedure.

A subsequent application, which is subject to an accelerated procedure, should contain new elements, as the CGRS will only take those into account. A separate appeal procedure with the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL) exists.

According to the CGRS, at the end of May the agency had 12,078 dossiers to work through, with 7,078 of those considered backlog.

Europe has been facing an large influx of refugees, especially from Africa and the Middle East, attempting to escape poverty or military conflicts.