The EU released a list of seven countries on Wednesday that it believes is “safe” to speed up immigration returns, making it harder for citizens of those countries to claim asylum in the group.

The European Commission said it proposed to designate Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia as “safe countries of origin.”

The actions criticized by human rights groups are aimed at enabling the EU government to process asylum applications made by citizens of these countries faster and have made presumptions that such claims lack merit.

“Many member states face a significant backlog of asylum applications, so it is crucial that anything we can do now to support faster asylum decisions,” said EU Immigration Commissioner Magnus Brunner.

Brussels has been under pressure to suppress irregular arrivals and promote deportation as public opinion on immigration worsens, which has exacerbated the gains of difficult regime elections in several countries.

The Commission said on Wednesday that EU candidates will also in principle meet the standards designated as safe countries.

But this also raises exceptions, including when they are hit by conflict – for example, this will be excluded from Ukraine.

The EU has submitted a similar list in 2015, but the program was abandoned due to the inclusion of other membership candidates Turkey.

The board said the list released on Wednesday could be expanded or reviewed over time and to view countries where there are currently a large number of applicants coming.

Several member states have designated countries that they consider “safe” asylums – for example, France’s list includes Mongolia, Serbia and Cape Verde.

The EU’s efforts are designed to coordinate the rules and ensure that the benchmarks are the same for all members.

States can individually add countries to the EU list, but cannot be subtracted from them.

The committee added that asylum cases still have to be checked separately to ensure that existing safeguards remain and that asylum seekers will not directly refuse.

The plan must be approved before the European Parliament and member states enter into force.

But it has been criticized by human rights groups.

Euromed Rights said some countries on the EU list suffered “abuse of rights and limited protections for their own citizens and immigrants”.

It reads on X: “Tag them ‘safe’ is misleading – dangerous”.

After reaching a nearly 10-year peak in 2023, irregular border crossings in the EU were found to drop 38% to 239,000 last year, according to data from the EU Frontex.

But under the leadership of the Hawks, including Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands, EU leaders called for urgent new legislation in October to increase and speed up returns and asked the committee to evaluate “innovative” ways of opposing irregular immigration.

Currently, less than 20% of people ordered to leave the group return to their country of origin, according to EU data.

Last month, the commission announced planned reforms to the return system of the 27-country group, which opened a road for member states to return centres for immigration outside the EU.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi on Wednesday called the EU’s latest move “the success of the Italian government.”