29-30 October Justice and home affairs ministers’ informal

Date: 05/11/1998

AUSTRIA and Germany's interior ministers insisted at a two-day informal meeting with their EU counterparts in Vienna that the burden of taking in political refugees and economic migrants from eastern Europe should be shared more equitably between the 15 Union member states. Both ministers emphasised that up until now their countries had borne the brunt of the problem because of their position on the EU's eastern frontier. They also pointed out that the crisis in Kosovo had led to a massive upsurge in applications for asylum in both countries.

BUT the two ministers were divided over how the burden might be shared more fairly, with Otto Schily of Germany favouring a quota system under which each member state would have to accommodate a limited number of asylum seekers, while Austria's Karl Schloegl pushed for an increase in financial aid for those countries most seriously affected by the recent wave of immigrants. “We need to devise ways and means of sharing financial solidarity. There should be financial support for the country faced with the refugee influx,” he said.

THEIR comments came during a debate on a strategy paper outlining options for establishing a common European asylum and immigration policy drawn up by the Austrian presidency. Schloegl, who chaired the meeting, said that most of his EU counterparts supported the initiative, but he acknowledged the ideas needed to be developed more fully.

DISCUSSIONS also focused on the difficulties in distinguishing between political asylum seekers and economic migrants. Schloegl stressed that the Union had no intention of closing its doors to refugees, but said that a clear distinction must be made between genuine political asylum seekers and those who simply wished to enter the EU in search of a higher standard of living. The Netherlands put forward a proposal for a task force to study the reasons for illegal immigration, and suggest ways of alleviating poverty and political oppression in the refugees' countries of origin.

JUSTICE and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin said that the Geneva Convention, the main existing international instrument governing the handling of asylum requests, had not kept pace with the growing problem of migration, and called for it to be updated. “The Geneva Convention was written in 1951, and a lot has changed since then. I want legally binding instruments as a complement to the Geneva Convention,” she said. Gradin argued that one flaw in the convention is that it does not recognise the status of asylum seekers who claim persecution by a third party, as opposed to a government. She also said that those claiming only temporary refuge were often unjustly overlooked under the present system.

THE ministers also called on all parties in the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo to comply immediately with United Nations' resolutions to allow all Kosovan refugees to return to their homes. They stopped short of issuing a joint declaration, but signed up unanimously to a draft statement prepared by Danish Interior Minister Thorkild Simonsen, calling for “all necessary and possible action to ensure an immediate and safe return of all displaced persons in and to Kosovo”.