Dublin Regulation

Human rights group Amnesty International has welcomed a ruling by the European Court of Justice against Hungary and Slovakia on the relocation of asylum-seekers, saying they have been trying to turn their countries into "refugee-free zones."

The European Union's top court dismissed complaints on Wednesday by Slovakia and Hungary about EU migration policy, upholding Brussels's right to force member states to take in asylum seekers.

The federal government in Berlin is suspending the return of asylum seekers to Hungary due to the poor conditions in the country, Spiegel reported.

The conditions in which refugees live in Hungary are considered uncertain by the German government. For this reason, Berlin will no longer send back to Hungary people applying for political protection status.

Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Mouzalas insisted on Tuesday that only a few migrants would be sent back to Greece from other European Union member-states now that the decision has been taken to reactivate the Dublin agreement.

"It is something that I have been saying for the last four months," he told Skai TV.

Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas has justified a decision by the Greek government to take back from Germany "a small number" of asylum seekers as a "symbolic" gesture.

"I have come under harsh criticism for things I have already announced a very long time ago. We shall implement the Dublin rules in a symbolic manner," Mouzalas said on Tuesday.

Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas has confirmed that Germany will start returning newly-arrived asylum seekers to Greece, effectively ending a five-year suspension of such transfers due to the poor conditions in the debt-hit country.

The European Union's executive will decide on Tuesday to open legal cases against three eastern members for failing to take in asylum-seekers to relieve states on the front lines of the bloc's migration crisis, sources said, quoted by Reuters.

The European Court of Justice, ECJ, on Wednesday announced its decision in two cases concerning Slovenia and Austria, which claimed Croatia allowed Syrian and Afghan refugees to enter their territory illegally in 2016.

The cases concern a Syrian refugee who entered Slovenia from Croatia and an Afghan pair who entered Austria via Slovenia and Croatia.

Any countries in the European Union receiving asylum requests from refugees have an obligation to process them irrespective of where the applicants first entered into the bloc, an advocate general at the European Court of Justice said on Thursday.

Germany's Interior Ministry has come under fire from the left-wing opposition after a decision to bring down the number of asylum-seeking family members allowed into the country from Greece to 70 a month, Deutsche Welle reports.