Ministers still divided over strategy to assist refugees

Date: 15/04/1999

By Gareth Harding

EU GOVERNMENTS remain deeply divided over how to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Kosovo and appear no closer to agreeing a common policy on how to deal with the victims of future conflicts.

At a meeting of justice and home affairs ministers last week, a majority of member states rejected a German plan to set national quotas for admitting refugees in favour of providing protection within the region.

However, ministers accepted that displaced persons might have to be temporarily airlifted to Union countries states to avoid destabilising Macedonia and Albania, where most of the 500,000 Kosovar refugees are sheltering.

Bonn had hoped that the humanitarian crisis engulfing Kosovo would push member states towards sharing the burden for accommodating refugees, and boost the chances of getting agreement on a European Commission proposal which has been gathering dust for the past two years because of fierce opposition from countries such as the UK and France.

At last week's meeting, however, the Union's two strongest military powers again poured cold water on the idea, arguing that setting national quotas would play into the hands of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The Commission nevertheless believes the EU's response to the Kosovo crisis has strengthened the case for some form of burden-sharing agreement on refugees in future conflicts.

A spokesman for Acting Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin said that after the Union's failure to cope collectively with influxes of Bosnian and Albanian refugees, the Swedish Commissioner was “tired of telling member states 'I told you so'”.

A number of governments support the Commission's stance. The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Luxembourg all go along with Germany in favouring a long-term strategy to deal with mass influxes of asylum-seekers.

In a paper presented to ministers last week, the Dutch government stressed the urgent need for EU member states to reach a common position on the reception of displaced persons.

But campaigners believe that such an agreement is highly unlikely before October's special summit of Union leaders on justice and home affairs issues in Finland.