Low-key start for new asylum rules

Date: 31/07/1997

By Simon Coss

NATIONAL governments have decided that the official entry into force of a controversial convention designed to end the practice of 'asylum shopping' by refugees will be a low-key affair.

The 'Dublin Convention' will come into operation on 1 September and the first meeting of the so-called Article 118 committee, named after the section of the agreement which set it up and designed to oversee its operation, is scheduled for the same day.

As this meeting will effectively mark the inauguration of the convention and the culmination of many years' hard work, it had initially been hoped that the EU's 15 justice ministers would attend.

But at a meeting last week, Union ambassadors finally decided that it would not be possible to assemble all the ministers for what will be a fairly short session and instead, national officials will represent them.

It has taken EU governments seven years to ratify the Dublin Convention, which aims to set basic ground rules for dealing with asylum applications. The deal was signed in 1990 between the then 12 members of the European Community. National parliaments have spent the intervening years poring over the text in protracted approval procedures.

Ironically, it was Ireland which was the last of the original signatories to ratify the agreement. New member states Austria, Finland and Sweden signed up after joining the EU in 1995 and have consequently been allowed extra time to complete the ratification process.

Following the Irish approval in May, a brief outburst of intergovernmental bickering sparked by Spanish objections to the proposed make-up of the Article 188 committee delayed matters further. But a compromise was soon reached which paved the way for the convention's entry into force in September.

Critics say the convention is another brick in the wall of 'Fortress Europe' and argue it will make it even more difficult for political refugees to gain asylum within the Union. They say the harmonised approach will oblige member states with traditionally liberal policies towards refugees to move nearer to the approach taken by more hardline EU partners.