7 April Justice and Home Affairs Council

Date: 15/04/1999

JUSTICE and home affairs ministers held an emergency meeting in Luxembourg to discuss the Union's response to the growing refugee crisis in Kosovo.

MINISTERS were divided over whether to help refugees in the region or focus on airlifting them out to EU countries. Germany pushed hard for member states to agree quotas for taking up to 100,000 Kosovar refugees from neighbouring states. But the UK and France argued that this would play into the hands of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

AFTER an intense debate, ministers agreed that protection should be provided as far as possible within the region and that “the long-term admission of Kosovars to countries outside the region would consolidate their displacement”. However, they also said that with numbers swelling daily, it might be necessary to move refugees to EU member states temporarily, on a voluntary basis.

SOME countries, such as Germany, Austria and Sweden, set out how many displaced persons they were prepared to accept. But German Interior Minister Otto Schily said that others had preferred to give “more general undertakings because they did not want to give the impression that they were lending aid to ethnic cleansing”. Ministers also called on the European Commission to provide funds from the EU budget to assist member states taking in refugees.

Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin gave details of the EU executive's plans to make €250 million available for countries in the region. She also pleaded with ministers to unblock a proposed 15-million euro European Fund for Refugees which has been held up in the Council of Ministers for institutional reasons.