Why is all this interesting?

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The adoption of this Convention was then followed by the Aznar Protocol, an Annex to the Treaty of Amsterdam. This Protocol made asylum in the EU almost impossible for EU citizens (some exceptions to this rule are nevertheless listed in it) by stipulating that “given the level of protection of fundamental rights and freedoms by the Member States phone number list of the European Union, Member States shall be regarded as constituting safe countries of origin in respect of each other for all legal and practical purposes in relation to asylum matters”.


Although asylum in the EU for EU citizens has not been an option since 1996, the issue recently resurfaced when Theo Francken, the Belgian State Secretary for migration and asylum policy, mentioned the possibility. This is hardly a surprise since Mr. Francken is a member of the N-VA, the Flemish secessionist party. On top of this, Bart Maddens, a leading Belgian political scientist who is very close to the N-VA and to the Flemish nationalist movement, acted as an accredited observer on the day of the referendum. This is, again, very familiar, as in 1993, the Garcia-Moreno couple gathered large support amongst the Flemish community in Belgium.