One European Union, one meaning of ‘Safe’?

This Master’s thesis displays how the Dutch application of the safe country of origin (SCO) concept is impacted by the European Union (EU). The relevance of this study could be described by the following state of affairs: since 1999, the EU is working on a Common European Asylum System (CEAS), the Netherlands encourages this development. Knowing this ambition, in 2020-2021, Cyprus assessed Togo as a safe country where “no persecution as defined in Directive 2004/83/EC, no torture or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment and no threat by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict” (Directive 2013/32/EC, art 37(1)) exists, while the Netherlands, around the same time, assessed Togo as an unsafe territory. A European approach towards ‘safe countries’ seems far from ‘common’. This study aims to contribute to the theory of (interactive) Europeanisation and shed light on the discrepancies between the Dutch and European SCO lists. For this the following research question is constructed: How has the EU had an impact/influence on the Dutch application of the safe country of origin’ concept between 2015-2021? The overall outcome shows that the EU impacts the Dutch application mostly in a procedural way. Regarding the top-down impact, the Asylum Procedure Directive helped initiating and framing the Dutch application of the SCO concept, this also due to the monistic legal system. Regarding the intrinsic norm-setting and implementation of the concept, the member states, including the Netherlands, hold ownership. Moving on to the bottom-up impact, this is hardly present in this case study. There are no Regulations formed yet, however in preparatory settings the possibilities for bottom-up harmonisation exists, but are hardly used. The application of the SCO concept in the Netherlands, is state-centric, and does not show any harmonising treats. At the same time, the Dutch diplomatic and political ambition is clearly focused on harmonisation and asylum policy convergence on the EU level. This paradoxical outcome makes the Dutch case particularly interesting. As such, the study displays the importance of improving communication lines to the public, and in particular towards other member states.