Table 1 Western Balkan countries and Turkey on EU Member States’ SCO lists

Germany as the main destination country, receiving 72 % of the Western Balkan inflow in 2015, implemented several changes in legislation, including adding Western Balkan countries to the national SCO list (Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina on 19 September 2014, and Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro on 24 October 2015), prioritising the processing of their applications and accelerating return procedures.
The divergence can be explained by national differences in conducting safety assessments with regard to countries of origin. Currently, the Asylum Procedures Directive only sets the requirement of regular review in its Article 37. The new proposed Asylum Procedures Regulation would centralise the assessment, leaving the review of the situation in third countries to the Commission, assisted by the European Union Agency for Asylum, which is proposed to be created through extending the mandate of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO). While the proposals are pending, EASO published in November 2016 new country of origin reports on the Western Balkan countries and Turkey to feed into the ongoing discussion and national assessments.