“strictly speaking, for those already in calais, the "Dublin Regulations" don't apply.”
Quite so, mushroom.
The Dublin Agreement states that refugees must apply for asylum in the first EU country they encounter. Of course it mentions nothing about danger or safety because all EU countries are deemed safe. Bar a very few that may have arrived in France directly all those in Calais will have passed through other EU nations and in most cases Greece or Italy was their first safe haven. It is those countries who should have “processed” them.
Of course, as I have said many times before, the Dublin accord is completely unnecessary anyway. The United Nations Convention on the Treatment of Refugees says exactly the same – that refugees must make their applications in the first safe haven they encounter. It goes a little further and says that refugees who fail to do so lose their right to claim asylum elsewhere, they lose the immunity they have from prosecution for entering a country illegally and henceforth can be treated as illegal immigrants in any country they subsequently travel to.
It was Frau Merkel who unilaterally decided to suspend the agreement and welcomed all and sundry to Germany to make their applications there – a decision she now seems to be regretting. This is very relevant to this question (“can we ever trust them”). Here we have the leader of the leading EU nation deciding that the EU rules by which, apparently, all member nations are bound, suddenly don’t suit her. So without any negotiation, consultation or even properly informing the other 27 “partners”, a major agreement is suddenly ditched for the sake of expediency. (Actually, because the EU had been so moribund in dealing with the crisis over the previous many months that the crisis had developed into a catastrophe). So, can we ever trust them? I think perhaps not.