Four of Cyprus’ six members of the European parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of the creation of a common European Union list of safe countries of origin to which asylum seekers can be returned and their claims rejected.

Loucas Fourlas and Michalis Hadjipantela of Disy, Geadis Geadi of Elam and independent Fidias Panayiotou all voted to approve the motion, while Akel’s Giorgos Georgiou voted against it and Diko’s Costas Mavrides did not vote.

Overall, the motion received 408 votes in its favour and 184 votes against. It will now become EU law if approved and formally adopted by the Council of the EU.

If approved, the law will see the EU produce a list of safe countries, with asylum seekers from those countries – thus far listed by the European Parliament as Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Kosovo, India, Morocco and Tunisia – to have their applications fast-tracked.

As well as the fast-tracking, the new key change is that asylum seekers from those countries will now have to prove that the provision declaring their country safe “should not apply in their case because of a well-founded fear of persecution or the risk of serious harm if sent back to their country”.

In addition, all EU candidates – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine – will be presumed to be safe countries of origin.

This status will only change, it said, if “relevant circumstances, such as indiscriminate violence in the context of an armed conflict, if their citizens have an EU-wide asylum recognition rate of above 20 per cent, or economic sanctions affecting fundamental rights and freedoms” indicate that they may no longer be safe.

If the motion is adopted by the council, the European Commission will be charged with “monitoring the situation” in countries on the safe list and candidate countries, and will “react if circumstances change”, according to the parliament.

“It could temporarily decide that a country is not safe or propose its permanent removal from the list,” it added, while noting that individual member states will also be able to unilaterally declare third countries safe according to their own domestic legislation.

EU member states will be able to reject individual applications from countries considered safe for those individuals in particular if one of three conditions is met.

The first condition is if there remains “a connection between an applicant and the … country”, including the presence of immediate family members, while the second is if the applicant has transited through a third country on the way to the EU where they could have claimed asylum.

The third and final condition is if “an agreement or arrangement exists with the third country at a bilateral, multilateral or EU level for the admission of asylum seekers”.

These exceptions are not applicable in the cases of unaccompanied minors.

Reacting to the vote, co-rapporteur and Italian MEP Alessandro Ciriani, who belongs to the Fratelli d’Italia party, which is in the ECR, the same European grouping as Elam, described it as “a political turning point in the EU’s management of migration”.

“This legislation brings the period of ambiguity to an end and sets out a clear course: common rules, faster and more effective procedures, protection of the right to asylum for those entitled to it, and a firm approach to tackling abuse. The EU is equipping itself with clear, enforceable rules based on shared responsibility,” he said.