BULGARIA: EUROPE’S ‘NO WAY OUT’ TRAP
Our final post delving into asylum procedures and access to humanitarian assistance in Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian asylum system appears designed to obstruct humanitarian assistance at every turn.
Access for NGOs and humanitarians is routinely restricted, whether through barriers to trial monitoring, detention facility access, or denial of communication and information-sharing. Asylum seekers are left isolated, with minimal access to legal aid, independent oversight, or a fair chance for their claims to be properly considered.
People seeking asylum are trapped in a system with no clear way forward: detained for months in abysmal conditions, processed through flawed asylum procedures, and denied effective protection.
Rather than addressing these failures or ensuring accountability, the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum risks reinforcing them, with increasing numbers of asylum seekers transferred back to Bulgaria and into the same dead-end system.
