Slim Pickings from Laeken

Text by Leena-Kaisa Åberg

The Laeken Summit Meeting held in December sought to assess the progress made in implementing the conclusions of the 1999 Tampere Summit Meeting by creating an area of freedom, security and justice in the European Union. Even before the meeting it was feared that asylum and immigration issues would lag behind the progress made on other matters - and these fears were justified.

Non-governmental organisations have been concerned about the progress made since the Tampere Summit Meeting. The achievements of the Council of Ministers have been more about controlling immigration than about creating a common asylum system. The Member States have been unwilling to compromise on their own policies, which has resulted in dilution and delay in considering proposals.

Time is running short for the Council of Ministers if the current European Union is to build a common asylum and immigration system before the scheduled date for enlargement in 2004. After enlargement this objective will unquestionably be far more difficult to achieve.

Refugee organisations were also hoping that the Member States at Laeken would express firmer commitment to harmonising asylum policies. Belgium, the current President of the European Union, even proposed in advance that the Member States should give an undertaking to refrain from amending their immigration laws until the harmonisation process was sufficiently far advanced. This initiative ran into broad resistance even before the Summit Meeting began.

The outcome of the Laeken marathon cannot be considered to be especially encouraging from the point of view of asylum issues. One positive note was that determination was expressed to make up for the delays that have occurred in the timetable. However, even though the Summit Meeting confirmed its commitment to the Tampere conclusions and the outcome of the Summit places general emphasis on a European commitment to human rights and to justice and solidarity in the globalisation process, the outcome in respect of a common refugee and immigration policy will probably not result in action by the European Union to achieve the desired new standard. Compared to the outcome in Tampere, the emphasis has also clearly shifted to other issues.

One aim is to balance the refugee protection required by the Geneva Refugee Convention with the reception capacity of the European Union and its Member States. An international division of responsibility will be essential from the point of view of compliance with the Convention under circumstances in which the volume of refugees grows to unbearable proportions. The existing European Union Directive on Temporary Protection and the European Refugee Fund were created for precisely this eventuality and should suffice to resolve a situation in which reception capacities are strained.

The range of measures specified in the conclusions on creating a common asylum and immigration policy focus on means of control: readmission agreements, an action programme on illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings, improving the Eurodac and Dublin systems and accelerated procedures for examining asylum claims are emphasised, even though there are also references to common standards in asylum procedures, reception and family reunification. There is no mention of human rights in this connection, nor are the lawful border control activities of States in any way balanced by their obligations to comply with the Geneva Refugee Convention, even though this is one of the principal challenges for refugee protection in contemporary Europe.

As a concrete objective the European Council requires the Commission to submit new proposals by the end of April for a draft Directive on asylum procedures and family reunification and for a system to replace the Dublin Convention.

The consideration of the Commission proposal for a Directive on asylum application procedures by the Council for Justice and Home Affairs, for example, has so far given cause for concern. Even though the Commission proposal already fails to meet all of the requirements for a fair asylum procedure, the Member States have insisted on a cut in minimum standards to an even lower level. They are seeking to extend the use of accelerated procedures and to limit appeal rights, and they have generally been unwilling to make a commitment to a Directive that deals with asylum applications in such detail. A new proposal from the Commission will probably correspond to the demands of the Member States.

At the last minute a point proposing asylum seeker access to the labour market was also deleted from the concluding documents at Laeken. Such a policy decision would have corresponded closely to current practice and also given the concluding documents a sorely needed more positive tone.

Before the Summit began the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), which represents more than 70 European refugee organisations, appealed to the EU governments for the European Union to make a commitment to agreeing on a common asylum procedure that would really harmonise national systems and would increase the general minimum standard so that the requirements were humane and consistent with human rights and international refugee law. ECRE also called for the European Union to consider the global consequences of its actions and to ensure that a common asylum procedure would reinforce a world-wide system of refugee protection and shared responsibility. As a practical measure it was also proposed that the European Union governments should give a collective undertaking to receive annual refugee quotas in support of the resettlement programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - UNHCR.

Although it is clear that the creation of a common asylum and immigration policy will now continue at the European Union in line with the objectives that were set out in Tampere, this will obviously not be happening in the original "Tampere Spirit". NGOs will be monitoring the progress of these preparations closely. Nor do these organisations regard harmonisation as an end in itself if the principal policy objective is to find the lowest standard of refugee protection acceptable to all of the Member States and the new system fails to deliver any improvements in the status of refugees.

Further details on this subject are available on the ECRE website: http://www.ecre.org/euro&refugees/

The writer is a co-ordinator of refugee and immigrant work for the Finnish Red Cross and a member of the board of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles - ECRE

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