Refugee crush overwhelms EU Dublin rule

More and more refugees are trying to avoid being registered. This applies especially for the registration centre of Roszke, near Hungary’s border with Serbia, on the Balkan route into the European Union.

A Hungarian humanitarian volunteer said the Dublin rule inspires lasting fear.

Mark Kekesi, with the NGO ‘Migrant Solidarity’, said: “The refugees are afraid of the Hungarian fingerprint regime because they are well aware of the fact that if their fingerprint is recorded in Hungary, then legally there is the opportunity for any Western European country to send them back to Hungary.”

The rule is enshrined in the EU Dublin Treaty. It says that any country signed up to it is responsible for processing an asylum request: the country the applicant first set foot in. That is supposed to stop a person from applying in more than one place.

There is a margin of flexibility for persons trying to join family already in one of the signatory states.

In general, the Eurodac common databa