The Federal Council is instructed, within the framework of the work on the preliminary jurisdiction procedure under the 2027 asylum strategy, to examine and report on how this procedure can be linked to the list of safe countries of origin or provenance under Article 6a paragraph 2 letter a of the Asylum Act. The goal is a mechanism whereby persons from one of these countries who wish to file an asylum application are directly assigned to the preliminary jurisdiction procedure. The report is in particular to show: how the assignment can be regulated based on the safe country list; whether and how nationals of countries with a very low protection rate who are not (yet) on the safe country list can be captured (e.g. Maghreb countries); what changes to legislation and ordinances are necessary for this; how the mechanism is compatible with constitutional and international law, in particular with the principle of non-refoulement and the right to an effective remedy; what effects it would have on procedure duration, the federal asylum centres, the enforcement of removals and the cantons.
The Confederation, cantons, cities and municipalities have decided, within the framework of the 2027 asylum strategy, to examine a preliminary jurisdiction procedure. This is intended to clarify, before the actual asylum procedure, whether an asylum application within the meaning of the Asylum Act exists at all. Persons without a realistic prospect of protection should not enter the asylum structures in the first place. The Confederation estimates the relief potential at around 20 percent of applications. As a target group, the Confederation names, among others, persons from countries with a very low protection rate. The Asylum Act already has a proven instrument for this: the Federal Council designates countries in which, according to its findings, there is no risk of persecution. It reviews this list periodically and consults the competent committees in doing so. It makes sense to link the new procedure to this existing list. Anyone coming from a safe country should be assigned to the preliminary jurisdiction procedure. Because certain countries of origin with a very low protection rate are not on the list, the Federal Council is also to examine how these can be additionally captured. Such a mechanism relieves the federal asylum centres, accelerates removal and creates capacity for people who genuinely need protection. The guarantees of international law remain preserved: the presumption of safety from persecution remains rebuttable in individual cases, and in the presence of concrete indications of persecution, the ordinary asylum procedure applies. Because the Confederation is currently working out the legal basis, now is the right time to clarify this link.