Bid to harmonise asylum seekers’ rights

Date: 14/09/00

By John Shelley

REFUGEES would be guaranteed minimum standards of treatment while their asylum applications are being processed under proposals to be unveiled by Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner António Vitorino next week.In a paper due to be adopted by the full Commission on Wednesday (19 September), Vitorino outlines plans for rules under which member states would be required to give asylum seekers a personal interview, the right to contact legal organisations and access to interpreters before their request could be turned down.

EU leaders agreed to the principle of minimum standards at the Tampere special justice and home affairs summit in October last year. But officials say the Commissioner has stayed clear of drawing up an overly-prescriptive package which could provoke controversy and scare governments away from the measures.

"The instrument we are proposing is going to be flexible. There are going to be a lot of possibilities for member states to retain elements of their national systems," said one. "We are just proposing minimum standards."

The paper will, for example, suggest introducing time limits on processing asylum requests - after which an applicant would be entitled to appeal to another authority - but member states would have discretion to decide exactly how these rules should be applied and what form such an appeal might take. The Commission proposal will also outline how member states must ensure their authorities are adequately resourced to cope with asylum requests, and set out the circumstances under which a country could reject an application without taking it through the full procedure.

Grounds for declaring an application inadmissable could include the fact that another member state is already processing a request from the same person or evidence that the application is manifestly unfounded because, for example, the prospective refugee has lied on his application form.Officials say that by harmonising minimum standards, the EU can avoid a situation where refugees head for certain countries because they consider their application has a better chance of success there, or where they seek sanctuary in one member state and try again in a second when their request is turned down. "We want to try to avoid secondary migration and the shopping around of asylum seekers between countries," said one.

The measures are also intended as a step towards more general harmonisation of the EU's treatment of asylum seekers. To this end, Vitorino's paper suggests how member states could go beyond the minimum standards at a later stage.

The Commissioner will present his proposal to justice ministers when they meet later this month. The French presidency is also due to outline parallel proposals on minimum standards for reception centres for asylum seekers.

Refugees would be guaranteed minimum standards of treatment while their asylum applications are being processed under proposals to be unveiled by Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner António Vitorino on 19.9.00.