Storm scuppers bid to update asylum rules

Date: 10/09/1998

By Simon Coss

ATTACKS by the European Parliament and adverse comment in the media appear to have sunk a controversial plan put forward by the Austrian presidency to update the EU's asylum policy.

Austrian officials who spent months drafting the comprehensive document now concede that their report will probably end up being quietly shelved by Union governments. “I am afraid now that this has become a very political issue and they will not want to discuss it,” said one diplomat.

The report presents a detailed analysis of how EU laws governing asylum policy work - or more often do not work - in practice, and suggests several areas where improvements could be made.

But the section of the document which has caused most uproar, including a blazing condemnation from the Parliament's Green Group, is the suggestion that the 1951 Geneva Convention should be either redrafted or amended.

The Austrians argue this is necessary because the United Nations-backed convention, which was drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War, is not relevant to the circumstances of many modern refugee crises. It was originally drafted to protect people from persecution by governments and contains no provisions, for example, for dealing with victims of civil wars or abuse by anti-government guerrilla groups. The Austrians also argue that it is badly equipped to respond to large influxes of refugees such as those the EU experienced during the recent war in former Yugoslavia. “A new direction of this kind can only be implemented on the basis of a convention supplementing, amending or replacing the Geneva Convention,” states the report.

Opponents of the plan argue, however, that any attempt to revise the convention should be viewed with extreme caution as it could be used as an excuse to erode the rights of asylum-seekers.

“The Geneva convention should not be tampered with,” said Austrian Green MEP Johannes Voggenhuber, who accused the presidency of pushing “the already predominant cynicism when it comes to asylum policy to the extreme”.

The Austrian government argues that what it is proposing would only build on the existing provisions of the Geneva Convention. “You cannot make the old criteria disappear because this is a UN convention. What we are doing is something additional,” said one official.

Vienna stresses that its document is simply a discussion paper and was never intended to be a legislative proposal. The report itself also points out that altering the Geneva Convention would be a very lengthy process requiring the assent of all the UN's 185 member countries.

“That formal factor alone means that a strategic step of this kind will require a fairly long preparation stage,” warns the paper, which is due to be discussed by the K4 Committee, made up of the EU's top justice and home affairs experts, at a meeting next Monday (14 September).