EU unites around tough approach to asylum

Date: 07/10/1999

ANALYSIS = A lack of trust between governments has often hampered efforts to get agreement on common justice and home affairs rules in the past. As Union leaders prepare for a special summit next weekend in Tampere devoted to the issue, Simon Coss assesses their chances of achieving real progress

WHEN it comes to the EU's rules on justice and home affairs, speedy decision-making has never been the order of the day.

Sensitive subjects such as immigration, asylum, drug smuggling and tackling crime have always proved extremely difficult to tackle at a European level as they touch on areas where national governments are loath to share any responsibility with their EU neighbours.

"The biggest obstacle to progress in this field is that member states just do not trust each other enough," said one refreshingly candid EU official recently.

It is against this general background of mutual suspicion and mistrust that the EU's political leaders will gather next weekend (15-16 October) in the Finnish city of Tampere for a special summit meeting on justice and home affairs.

Preparations for the summit have not been easy. With just a few days to go, the Finnish government, which will host the event as part of its EU presidency, has not even finalised the agenda for the meeting.

That is not surprising, given that when Helsinki tried to sound out Union governments earlier this year on the issues they would like to cover at the two-day talks, almost every country said it wanted to discuss a different subject. "If they talked about everything that has been suggested, they would be in Tampere for two weeks, not two days," said one EU official at the time.

But despite the enormity of the task facing the Finns, it appears that Tampere will achieve at least one concrete result.

Helsinki has managed to achieve the almost impossible feat of getting EU governments to agree on a justice and home affairs question by using one of the oldest political tricks in the book. It played the race card.

Next week, EU leaders and foreign ministers will say that they are determined to crack down on illegal immigrants who come to the Union in the hope of finding a better life. Of course they will not say so in such bald terms, but that is what they will mean.

The gist of the agreement to set up a single European asylum system which will almost certainly be unveiled in Finland next week will be that the Union intends to get even tougher on immigration.

The deal will represent the first real attempt to put some flesh on the bones of the new clauses on immigration and asylum policy inserted into the Amsterdam Treaty, which entered into force early this year. It is also, however, likely to cause concern amongst pro-refugee groups.

One of the key elements of the plan will be a pledge by EU governments to examine rigorously requests for political asylum to ascertain whether the applicant is seeking refuge in the Union for political or economic reasons. While in some instances the answer to this question will be fairly obvious, in others it will be far less clear.

Raymond Hall, a leading official in the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees' office, said recently that he detected a worrying trend towards treating asylum as a question of 'political discretion' rather than a human right.

Another issue linked to this is the question of what are euphemistically called 'readmission agreements'. These are essentially 'send them back' deals struck between the Union and an asylum seeker's country of origin.

If the EU decides a person's application for asylum is invalid, then - after theoretically checking that the rejected claimant is not in immediate danger of death or persecution - they will send them home.

Readmission can sometimes prove difficult to put into practice, as the person being sent home is not always keen to make the return trip. The Belgian police encountered this problem recently when they tried to send a young African girl back to her country of origin. In a bid to stop the girl struggling as they prepared to bundle her onto an aeroplane, they put a pillow over her face. But that prevented her from breathing and she died.

One of the more controversial elements of the Amsterdam Treaty's new chapter on asylum and immigration policy is the idea that readmission agreements should form an integral part of the Union's wider foreign policy.

Finnish Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen explained this concept when she spoke to MEPs about preparations for the summit during last month's European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg.

"I am of the opinion that these possibilities have to be utilised to the full. In Tampere, we could decide to consistently include readmission clauses in Community and mixed-type agreements," she said.

What worries critics of such moves is that in the future EU aid to third countries could come with 'readmission strings' attached.

Concern has already been voiced that the Union might insist that agreements with countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq - neither of which are renowned for their commitment to human rights - should include these clauses.

Helsinki has consistently tried to stress the need to balance any tough new line on immigration with a proper regard for asylum seekers' human rights. "Human rights have to apply to all persons living in the Union territory, without discriminating against anyone," Halonen told MEPs.

The problem is that not all EU governments share the Finns' progressive views on the issue, and justice and home affairs is a policy area where member states call the shots and all decisions must be taken unanimously.

"Final decisions concerning the right to asylum will remain a national competence," French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin reminded reporters after a meeting in Paris with his Finnish counterpart Paavo Lipponen last week.

It is also hard to see how any new Austrian government will be able to toe Helsinki's liberal line, given that the second largest political force in the country is now the extreme-right Freedom Party, which made huge electoral gains in last weekend's poll by campaigning on the slogan 'Austria for the Austrians'.

But while EU leaders look set to agree in Tampere that they will try to discourage as many people as possible from seeking asylum within the Union's borders, the tone is likely to be less harmonious when it comes to the question of what to do with those people who are allowed to stay.

For years, those member states which have traditionally received large numbers of refugees, led by Germany, have called for the EU to put in place a system to 'share out' asylum seekers more evenly between the Union's 15 countries.

However, all the evidence suggests that EU governments are nowhere near any sort of answer to the burden-sharing question.

During the recent NATO bombing campaign over Kosovo, for example, both the UK and France made it clear that they opposed any idea of setting up a quota system among EU governments for taking in refugees.

One plan which has been floated on a number of occasions and is currently being championed by the Finns is the idea of setting up a special fund, financed from the Union budget, which could be used to help member states which take on especially large numbers of refugees. But here again, the plan would need to be agreed on unanimously.

As far as the Finns are concerned, Tampere will be a success. They will be able to trumpet at least one significant deal and that should be enough to silence critics who are predicting in advance that the meeting will amount to nothing more than a talking shop.

EU presidents and prime ministers should also be happy. They will be able to appear united on the day and then order their justice and home affairs ministers, who will not attend the talks, to go away and work on the details of the agreement - a task which is likely to take years.

Major feature. A lack of trust between governments has often hampered efforts to get agreement on common justice and home affairs rules in the past. As Union leaders prepare for a special summit in Tampere devoted to the issue, author assesses their chances of achieving real progress.