CENTRAL EUROPE: Austria to suspend family reunification ― Czech government plans to tighten asylum policy ― German government coalition talks pave way for stricter migration policy ― EU court rules on transgender refugee case in Hungary ― Swiss…

• The Austrian government is planning to suspend family reunification for people seeking asylum in the country
• The Czech government has announced plans to tighten its asylum law.
• The two parties that are expected to form the next German government have agreed to a significantly stricter approach to migration.
• The Court of Justice of the EU has ruled that Hungary has to correct the gender status of a transgender man in its asylum register.
• The Swiss government has rejected a proposal to limit the country’s population to 10 million.

The Austrian government is planning to suspend family reunification for people seeking asylum in the country. Announcing the measure on 12 March, Chancellor Christian Stocker told journalists that it was necessary to prevent “further overloading” of Austria’s social services. He also stated that the measure would be temporary and that the integration process for people who were already in the country would be prioritised. Stocker’s claim that the suspension was required to ensure “the quality of the school system” was rejected by the opposition Green party. “What the federal government has presented will not help a single child, a single teacher or a single parent,” said Green party education spokesperson Sigrid Maurer when the proposal was approved by the Council of Ministers on 26 March. Critics have also questioned the legality of the measure which, if approved, could initially last until September 2026. The co-director of Amnesty International Austria, Shoura Zehetner-Hashemi, described it as a “clear violation of applicable international law” while the director of the University of Linz’s Institute for European Law, Franz Leidenmühler, said it had little chance of succeeding as the government’s decision to invoke the EU’s emergency clause had not been justified. “There are a whole series of criteria, none of which are met,” he told the Österreich 1 radio station. The proposal will be now be sent to parliament where it could be adopted “as early as April”.

The Czech government has announced plans to tighten its asylum law. On 12 March, members of the ruling coalition met opposition parties to present a series of measures, including restrictions on the possibility to claim asylum, faster deportation procedures and closer monitoring of asylum applicants, that it would like to enact before the end of April. Despite the government’s desire to ensure a rapid approval, the draft law is already facing significant resistance, including from civil society. Describing the draft law as “hastily drafted” and “even unconstitutional”, the executive director of ECRE member organisation the Organization for Aid to Refugees (OPU), Martin Rozumek, said: “It will not stand up in court, especially in higher courts”. He also criticised the government for including measures that go beyond what is required for Czechia to implement the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. “In Czechia, many people are held in deportation camps and the proposed law allows virtually anyone to be locked up in such prison-like facilities,” he added. Opposition political parties have rejected the proposal for various reasons, including accusations that it is a political ploy ahead of elections that are due to take place in the autumn.

The two parties that are expected to form the next German government have agreed to a significantly stricter approach to migration. According to information about the ongoing coalition negotiations that was published on 25 March, the Christian Democrat (CDU/CSU) alliance and the Social Democratic Party have agreed on a number of measures, including a “huge” increase in the capacity for detaining people pending deportation, a two-year suspension of family reunification, an expansion of the list of safe countries to which people can be deported and the abolition of mandatory legal assistance. However, disagreements remain on other issues, including the possible outsourcing of asylum procedures. Commenting on the SPD’s apparent rejection of the CDU/CSU’s call for the establishment of deportation centres outside Germany, Wiebke Judith from ECRE member organisation PRO ASYL said: “The SPD must clearly oppose the misguided approach of outsourcing asylum procedures,” adding: “Experts are unequivocal: Such attempts lead to great suffering, are extremely expensive, and are usually doomed to failure”.

The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has ruled that Hungary has to correct the gender status of a transgender man in its asylum register. The case relates an Iranian national “VP” who was born female but who had transitioned and subsequently obtained refugee status in Hungary in 2014. Although Hungary granted VP refugee status on the basis of his transgender identity, he was registered as female in the asylum register. In 2022, VP requested, inter alia, that the asylum authority corrected the register. However, the request was rejected on the ground that VP had not proved that they had undergone gender reassignment surgery. VP then launched a legal action before the Budapest High Court which referred the case to the CJEU. On 13 March, the CJEU ruled, inter alia, that “if the purpose of collecting those data was to identify the data subject, those data would appear to refer to that person’s lived gender identity, and not to the identity assigned to them at birth” and that an EU member state “cannot rely on the absence, in its national law, of a procedure for the legal recognition of transgender identity in order to limit the exercise of the right to rectification”. Commenting on the judgement, lawyer Gábor Győző, who represented VP on behalf of ECRE member organisation the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Háttér Society, said: “It is very important and welcomed that the Court not only addressed the specifics of the case, but also assessed the Hungarian legal framework and the protection of the rights of trans people in a broader context. Moreover, this decision also serves as a guideline for all other member states on this issue”.

The Swiss government has rejected a proposal to limit the country’s population to 10 million. On 21 March, the Federal Council said that the proposal, which was made by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP/UDC/PPS), would damage Switzerland’s prosperity, economic growth and security and recommended to legislators and voters to reject it. The government statement came after an SVP/UDC/PPS initiative gathered more than 114,000 signatures requesting a plebiscite on the issue. The SVP/UDC/PPS, which is currently the largest party in the Federal Assembly, had argued that “uncontrolled migration” was overwhelming the country’s infrastructure and causing rent inflation. ECRE member organisation the Swiss Refugee Council denounced the SVP/UDC/PPS initiative for aiming to “radically limit access to protection and asylum in Switzerland”. “The initiative would therefore not only have far-reaching consequences for the economy and prosperity; it would also, and above all, seriously endanger refugee women, children and men seeking protection in Switzerland,” it wrote in a press release. The initiative will now go to parliament which will have more than a year to debate the issue while no date has been set for the national vote.

Related articles