Bonn seeks asylum solution

Date: 04/02/1999

By Gareth Harding

GERMANY will attempt to break the log-jam over the way EU countries deal with mass influxes of asylum-seekers at an informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers next week.

Progress on the issue in the Council of Ministers has been held up for almost two years, because of differences over how to share the burden amongst the bloc's 15 member states.

Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, which receive a disproportionately large number of asylum-seekers, are pressing other member states to take on a 'fairer' share of the burden by accepting more displaced people.

But countries such as the UK and France are resolutely opposed to this, arguing that the burden can be spread in other ways, such as providing humanitarian aid or peacekeeping forces to areas of conflict.

Bonn has now come up with a formula aimed at bridging the divide between those favouring quotas and those opposed to them. Instead of numerical quotas, member states will be asked to make a general commitment, or 'pledge', to accept a fair share of asylum-seekers when faced with a mass influx of migrants from neighbouring countries.

A Council official said that with asylum issues now at the top of the political agenda, it was “essential that the public is given a clear signal that something is being done”. But it remains unlikely that member states which currently accept relatively few asylum-seekers will sign up to even a vague promise to take more.

In an attempt to move the issue forward without antagonising EU governments, the European Commission has drawn up plans to spend €16.75 million on improving reception facilities for asylum-seekers.

At next week's informal meeting, ministers will also be presented with a progress report on the high-level working group on asylum and immigration.

The aim of the group, which was set up in December, is to look at both the 'push' and 'pull' factors leading to mass migration. According to one diplomat, this essentially means “lessening the number of refugees and asylum-seekers”.

EU foreign ministers have agreed a list of priority countries where refugee streams will be analysed. These are Pakistan and Afghanistan, Albania and Kosovo, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Somalia.

Action programmes for dealing with large movements of migrants from these countries will be drawn up by the Commission and national officials in time for a special EU summit on justice and home affairs issues in October. But diplomats warn that it will be far from easy to translate the studies into concrete measures.