Lukewarm welcome for new refugee provisions

Date: 27/02/1997

By Mark Turner

FUTURE refugee crises could be met with a coordinated EU response if proposals due to be discussed by the European Commission next week are accepted by member states.

But diplomats suggest that negotiations on the proposals could be long and hard if the Commission tries to accomplish too much.

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin is expected to call for wide-ranging Union rules for receiving temporary refugees from crisis regions.

“The idea is to produce a model enabling the EU member states to cope more readily with any mass influx of refugees in the future,” Gradin told MEPs recently.

But while the move is being welcomed by non-governmental activists, parliamentarians and the United Nations High Commis-sion for Refugees (UNHCR), member states are unlikely to accept any guidelines which might be seen as excessively rigid.

Particular concerns surround the idea that all countries should give temporary refugees the same levels of housing, education and healthcare, adding to rules already established by the Geneva Convention on Refugees.

“Any kind of harmonisation in the field of asylum would be welcomed by us, as long as it maintained a minimum level of guarantees in accordance with international law,” said a UNHCR spokesman.

This view was echoed by British Socialist MEP Glyn Ford. “It seems eminently sensible to me that we have a situation where the EU responds with one voice,” he said.

But although Gradin's plans are likely to win support from the Scandinavian countries, big players such as France, Germany and the UK may take much more convincing. “It is not that the sceptical states are less willing to help,” said one diplomat. “It is just that they want to be generous on a more voluntary basis.”

Nevertheless, most EU governments accept that something should be done. The outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia unleashed a flood of refugees on a scale never previously encountered by the Union, resulting in a confused and unbalanced response from member states which was roundly criticised by humanitarian organisations.

Gradin hopes to ensure that the EU is better prepared in future. But whereas the Commission appears to believe those preparations should take the form of a joint action, which would be binding on member states once agreed, some diplomats argue that a non-binding recommendation or resolution might be more suitable.