Political asylum within the European Union

Uncertain provisions of the European law regarding political asylum granted by one EU member state to a citizen of another EU member state create a human rights contradiction in the case of Gregorian Bivolaru.

On 3rd October 2013, during the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting organized by OSCE in Warsaw, Soteria International raised in front of the international community the issue appeared in one of the cases monitored by the organization. The case regards political asylum granted by Sweden to a Romanian citizen, founder of a large spiritual movement due to the persecution he faced in his home country. Since Romania acceded to the EU, the prosecution of the respective person is now considered on equal ground with the decision of asylum, thus it creates a contradiction between the asylum decision and the decision to issue an European warrant of arrest. While it is a legal matter the implications on human dimension result in violation of core fundamental rights.

The text of the background document submitted by Soteria International can be consulted here: http://www.osce.org/odihr/106628

About OSCE’s HDIM: The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM), Europe's largest annual human rights and democracy conference, is organized every year by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) as a platform for OSCE participating States, Partners for Co-operation, civil society, international organizations and OSCE structures to take stock of the implementation of the human dimension commitments, discuss associated challenges, share good practices and make recommendations for further improvements (www.osce.org/hdim_2013).