Plan to harmonise treatment of refugees

Date: 18/05/2000

By John Shelley

PLANS to harmonise the way EU member states deal with mass influxes of refugees would guarantee extensive employment, housing and education rights to those granted temporary asylum.

Under proposals drawn up by Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner António Vitorino, people fleeing their homelands because of war or other catastrophes would be entitled to work in any Union country and their children given the same rights to education as EU nationals.

They would also be entitled to social security support and a minimum standard of housing, although this might be in temporary refugee centres.

The proposals, due to be adopted by the full Commission next Wednesday (24 May), are part of a package of measures drawn up by Vitorino to ensure a unified approach towards dealing with mass movements of displaced people such as that which occurred during the Kosovo crisis.

If agreed by Union governments, the proposals would go a long way towards ensuring equal treatment of displaced persons. But Vitorino has stopped short of calling for quotas to be imposed on the number of asylum seekers each member state would be obliged to admit and has shied away from proposing a burden-sharing scheme under which countries with fewer refugees would be forced to give financial or other support to those which were inundated. The Commission was originally enthusiastic about both these ideas, but has back-tracked because of fears that they would run into fierce opposition from some member states.

EU diplomats predict that the draft proposals will be broadly welcomed by governments. "I think most countries support having a common approach, a level playing field across Europe. It is in the Amsterdam Treaty and the conclusions of the Tampere summit," said one. "This Commission proposal appears to take political reality into account - that they are not going to get away with imposing a quota system, for example. As a result, I do not think people are going to be up in the air screaming in complaint about this one."

The rights guaranteed under temporary protection rules currently vary widely across the Union, with some countries already promising high standards of care while others pledge not to throw refugees out but very little else.

Human rights groups claim some governments use temporary protection status as an excuse to deny refugees the stronger rights of permanent asylum status as defined by the Geneva convention. To tackle this problem, Vitorino will propose setting a strict two-year time limit on temporary status, after which refugees must apply for full asylum status or return home.

The new EU-wide temporary-status rules would also guarantee special protection for unaccompanied children as well as victims of rape, torture and violence. In addition, special guarantees that refugee families will be kept together are envisaged.