ECRE has published a comments paper on the Regulation on standards for the qualification of third country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection and for the content of the protection granted, commonly known as the Qualification Regulation, which was adopted in May 2024.

This comments paper is the latest in the series of ECRE analyses of the legislation that collectively forms the Pact on Migration and Asylum. It follows comments papers on the Regulation on Asylum and Migration Management, the Regulation on Addressing Situations of Crisis and Force Majeure in the Field of Migration and Asylum, the Directive Laying Down Standards for the Reception of Applicants for International Protection, the Regulation establishing a Common Procedure for International Protection in the EU, and the Regulation introducing the screening of third-country nationals at the external borders. It should be read together with the ECRE comments paper on the European Commission’s (EC) proposal for a Qualification Regulation.

The proposal for a Qualification Regulation was published in July 2016, as part of a second package of reforms of the Common European Asylum System. The Regulation repeals the 2011 recast Qualification Directive and covers the same subject matter: ‘standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted’.

As with the other proposals for which the content was largely agreed by the co-legislators in 2018, the impact of the Qualification Regulation on the fundamental rights of applicants is mixed. Compared to the Qualification Directive, there are changes which enhance the rights of asylum applicants and beneficiaries of international protection, and others which are likely to reduce access to rights, including the right to asylum itself. Despite the transformation of the directive into a regulation, the changes are not extensive.

When the proposal was presented in 2016, ECRE expressed three major concerns. First, the measures in the text were contradictory in that some were aimed at supporting integration while others rendered protection status more precarious, thus creating a major obstacle to integration. Second, the proposal further widened the gap between the EU asylum acquis and the central pillar of international refugee law, the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 Protocol (hereafter ‘the Refugee Convention’) through expanding and rendering mandatory the use of legal concepts with no basis in it. Third, the proposal constituted “negative harmonisation”, an approach which runs throughout the reform, and which results in greater harmonisation but at a lower standard of protection.

Following the analysis and drafting of amendments by and negotiations between the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, the final text partially assuages some of the concerns that ECRE raised. In terms of precarity of status, the provisions for mandatory reviews were removed and regarding the Refugee Convention, the use of the concept of an internal protection alternative is more limited than in the EC’s proposal. Overall, however, while there are some elements that improve access to rights, when it is read in conjunction with the other Pact legislation, the Qualification Regulation contributes to consolidating the trend towards negative harmonisation.

The comments paper is available here.