Op-Ed: “The Court of Justice’s Stance on Safe Countries of Origin: What Implications at the EU and National Levels?”

With the CV Case (C‑406/22) of 4 October 2024, the Court of Justice interpreted the concept of a ‘safe country of origin’ in Articles 36 and 37 of the Asylum Procedures Directive 2013/32 (‘the Directive’) for the first time in substance. This concept, introduced into EU law in 2005, intends to allow States to process and reject asylum applications from countries deemed safe more quickly and with fewer procedural guarantees, thereby reducing ‘pressure’ on their asylum systems. This is achieved by applying a rebuttable presumption. As such, while its characteristics distinguish it from concepts such as ‘safe third country’, it conceptually belongs to the broader safe country notion in EU law.