Governments at odds over asylum criteria

Date: 21/11/1996

By Mark Turner

DEEP divisions between member states are obstructing efforts to agree on common conditions for asylum seekers awaiting decisions on their applications.

Officials have been trying to draw up a set of guidelines on standards of accommodation, education, and the medical and psychological treatment of asylum seekers, in the run-up to next week's meeting of justice and home affairs ministers.

But irreconcilable differences between EU governments almost resulted in their draft recommendations being taken off the agenda of next Thursday's (28 November) meeting. It now looks as though they will be discussed, but only after being substantially watered-down.

The EU has nominally aimed to harmonise its asylum policy since the Strasbourg summit of 1989, and it institutionalised that aim in the Maastricht Treaty.

The crisis in Yugoslavia, which brought a flood of refugees in to western Europe, highlighted the Union's disunity and added impetus to calls for more coherence.

But it appears that member states are still not ready to move beyond political oratory into hard and fast policy-making.

Their avowed intention is simple enough - no one EU country should appear significantly more attractive than any other when asylum seekers are deciding where to lodge their application.

Supporters of a common system also argue that since asylum cases are often extremely high profile, it is important for the Union to present a united front to the outside world. But diplomats admit that there is scant political will behind the rhetoric.

The first clear evidence of a weak commitment to the guidelines came when negotiators downgraded what was to be a joint action, implying a legal commitment, to a recommendation, implying none.

But even with a substantially weaker instrument on the table, member states appear unwilling to go beyond what is already in their national laws.

“The whole exercise is pointless,” said one Council source. “This is exactly what is wrong with the third pillar [the justice and home affairs section of the Maastricht Treaty].”

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin has expressed her concern over the difficulties facing the proposals, which are designed to build on a set of Commission recommendations dating back to 1994.

“Migration policies must be comprehensive to be effective,” she recently told the International Bar Association in Berlin. “We have learned that from experience. This means that they must cover asylum, immigration, integration and repatriation efforts.”

Gradin may, however, have grounds for hope. Some diplomats suggest that this latest failure will provide fresh ammunition for those demanding that asylum policy be moved to the mainstream of Union business. At the moment, it is dealt with under the third, purely intergovernmental pillar of the Maastricht Treaty and relies on unanimous agreement.

But others disagree, arguing that the deadlock proves that member states are simply not ready to abandon sovereignty over such sensitive areas.

What is clear is that the issues which have caused the stalemate are highly complex both in legal and political terms, and offer no easy solution.

One of the most bitter and uncompromising battles is being fought over the text's opening statement and demonstrates just how detailed negotiations can be. Member states disagree over whether the guidelines should lay out rules for handling applicants for asylum until an initial decision on their request has been reached or until a final decision has been made.

While the difference may not appear hugely significant to the uninitiated, many member states simply cannot accept the inclusion of the word 'final', while Germany and Sweden cannot accept the text without it.