Iraqi refugees reveal asylum regimes disharmony

The recently highlighted case of thousands of Iraqi refugees requesting asylum in Sweden is about more than just people fleeing a troubled state. It shows how EU member states treat asylum cases differently and poses questions about the extent to which the Union’s common asylum system is functioning.

More than 9,000 Iraqis applied for asylum in Sweden last year with some 80% receiving refugee status. But the overall EU rate of acceptance of Iraqi asylum applicants was just 10%.

Member states signed up to achieving a common asylum system in the 1997 Amsterdam treaty, which entered into force in 1999, and they laid down concrete ways to achieve this in the Hague Programme in 2004. The theory is that asylum policy should be harmonised to make sure asylum-seekers face the same rules everywhere in the EU. Since member states first signed up to this, they have approved four main instruments for moving towards the goal.

The 2003 Dublin regulation establishes the rules by which member states should assess asylum applicants and provides for asylum-seekers to be sent back to the EU country in which they first landed to have their case heard.

The receptions directive, also adopted in 2003, guarantees minimum standards on education, housing and health for asylum-seekers.

The 2004 qualifications directive sets down rules for qualifying for refugee status and permits subsidiary status for people who fall outside the Geneva Convention. The procedures directive - approved last year, which must be implemented by the end of this year - ensures minimum standards for asylum procedures and allows for such basic assistance as legal aid and interpretation.

The lack of implementation and differing interpretations of these laws is one of the reasons for different treatment of asylum cases across the EU, says Bjarte Vandvik, secretary-general of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, a non-governmental organisation. "We’ve started out with minimum standards and it’s up to the member states to go beyond [that]," he says.

Some EU states will not grant refugee status if parts of the country they are fleeing are safe, while other member states will.

And different standards applied do not stop at the acceptance and refusal rates of asylum-seekers. Some states detain asylum-seekers while their applications are being processed while others do not. Some states also house and care for asylum-seekers who have been turned down for refugee status but who are appealing against the decision while others do not, forcing many people to become homeless. Some states even deport people while an appeal is pending.

"Harmonisation is good if it leads to better and higher standards," says Madeline Garlick, senior European affairs officer, with the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR. "We would hope every country would introduce or maintain asylum laws consistent with international law but there has tended be the lowest common denominator applied and this is a concern."

The Commission says the creation of a common asylum system is only half complete - with the target of a better functioning system by 2010. "We are only at the first step after years of member states having their own policy. We now have minimum standards but we will ensure that in the future there will be common standards," said a spokesman.

A green paper due out later this year will pose questions to member states and those involved with refugees about what kind of asylum system they want and how things could work better. The Commission must also begin evaluating how the current system is being applied across the EU.

For some there is hope: "There is difficulty because changes to the asylum procedure can go to the heart of how a legal system works. Some states are reluctant to include extensive safeguards in asylum processes, because they fear it would be politically unpopular," Garlick says. "But if you look at the wording of the Amsterdam treaty and the Hague Programme, member states have said they are committed to a common asylum system in line with the Geneva Convention and this was agreed at the highest political level."

But political sensitivities will make achieving a true common asylum system difficult. "Any question of nationality, borders and asylum are controversial and this is one of the big areas where governments are sensitive and where it is dominated by perceived public opinion," says Vandvik.

The recently highlighted case of thousands of Iraqi refugees requesting asylum in Sweden is about more than just people fleeing a troubled state. It shows how EU member states treat asylum cases differently and poses questions about the extent to which the Union’s common asylum system is functioning.