Safe at last? Law and practice in selected EU member states with respect to asylum seekers fleeing indiscriminate violence

The broad objective of this research was to investigate in several Member States the extent to which implementation of the European Qualification Directive delivers international protection to persons fleeing situations of indiscriminate violence, and to ascertain whether a protection gap exists. The study focuses on Belgium, France, Germany the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, which together received 75 percent of all asylum applications in the EU in 2010. The European Directive sets out two distinct but complementary statuses of international protection, namely refugee status derived from the 1951 Convention and subsidiary protection status for persons at real risk of serious harm as defined in Article 15 of the Qualification Directive. EU Member States were required to transpose the Qualification Directive into national legislation by October 2006. The scope of the research covers refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. In the EU as a whole in 2010, Afghans, Iraqis and Somalis represented 20 percent of asylum applicants.