EU leaders urged to tackle asylum bias

Date: 13/12/01

By Martin Banks

The deaths of eight refugees, found suffocated in a shipping container in Ireland, highlights the urgent need for EU leaders to safeguard the rights of asylum seekers, a conference was told this week.

Delegates in Brussels heard that there is a "shameful contradiction" in the way EU citizens and those seeking refuge in Europe are treated.

Representatives from 73 European refugee NGOs and leading public figures, including former prime minister of Belgium Wilfried Martens, are now calling on leaders meeting at Laeken this weekend to "put into practice" their professed commitment to human rights and asylum.

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), which organised Monday's conference, says that efforts to establish an EU-wide asylum system are currently "bogged down" due to a lack of political will among member states.

ECRE General Secretary Peer Baneke said last weekend's tragedy - three children were among the victims - was a "powerful reminder" to governments to keep their promise to offer refugees a safe route into Europe. "Every day, refugees and their families are forced by a raft of immigration controls to risk their lives to exercise their right to seek asylum," he said.

Since 11 September, member states had shown they could overcome differences to work towards a united approach to fighting terrorism, but this contrasted starkly with the absence of political will to agree asylum law in line with international human rights obligations. "States could not even agree, for example, that all children should be allowed to join their refugee parents," Baneke continued.

"Governments must demonstrate political leadership and end the shameful contradiction that denies the freedoms that Union citizens take for granted to those who are forced to flee and seek safety in Europe."

He said the Laeken summit offered a "golden opportunity" to give real momentum to the asylum debate. "If responsibility for refugees is to be fairly shared between member states, European leaders must commit themselves to placing the protection of refugees, rather than deterrence, at the core of a common asylum policy," he added.

Baneke claimed the events of 11 September had raised further concerns that governments were hurrying through laws that might further erode refugees' rights.

Meanwhile, EU leaders have been urged to "get a grip" on poverty by the European Anti-Poverty Network which has sent an open letter to each of the 15 heads of state meeting this weekend in the Belgian capital.

A spokesman for the Brussels-based group said: "Poverty and social exclusion have first to be tackled at national, regional and local levels but Community policies still impact both these processes. Bearing down on poverty and exclusion must be made a central element of all Community policies."

Report of a conference organised by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), Brussels, 10 December 2001.

http://www.ecre.org/ http://www.ecre.org/

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