Brussels, 01/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - A delegation from the European Parliament composed of Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, Spain), Rui Tavares (GUE-NGL, Portuguese) and Georgios Papanikolaou (EPP, Greek), members of the committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE), stayed in Syria from 28-30 March on a fact-finding mission regarding the situation of Iraqi refugees in that country. MEPs went to the al-Hol refugee camp in the north-east of the country (where there are 650 refugees) and met several refugees in Damascus, where they also met the Syrian authorities and local UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) representatives. This visit was held with a view to next week's examination of two reports by Rui Tavares (GUE/NGL, Portugal) relating to the resettlement of refugees.
Rui Tavares was interviewed by EUROPE upon his return from Syria. His first comments were: “In Syria, there are a large number of refugees of different ethnic origins and religions from Iraq, as well as Palestinians fleeing persecution. Most live in an urban environment”. He explained: “We saw refugees sometimes living in very difficult conditions without money or work, with the risk of expulsion hanging over them, and their children at work and not at school”. Tavares feared these conditions would grow even worse in coming months. He was pleasantly surprised, however, by the cooperation shown by the Syrian authorities. “They gave us clear and transparent access allowing us to speak openly”, Tavares said. Nonetheless, the fact-finding mission did not have a mandate to verify the way refugees are being treated but rather to see how Europe could give effective assistance to these refugees via a true European resettlement programme. “Europe can do better. Our main problem is that only ten member states out of 27 resettle refugees on a regular basis. We should like to convince more countries to take part in a joint European programme for resettlement of refugees”, he said. According to the UNHCR, there are 200,000 refugees in the world that need resettlement. These are people who cannot return to their homeland, women and children who are physically or sexually threatened, people undergoing medical treatment, victims of torture and victims of armed attack or natural disasters (drought). The MEPs said this problem can be resolved if Europe creates a sound and ambitious resettlement programme. The United States takes in some 80,000 refugees, followed by Canada (11,000), Australia (10,000) and the European Union (about 5,000), almost as much as Brazil (4,000). “Europe can do better. We have the potential to rapidly increase this number”, Tavares stressed. He considers that, in the short term, the EU could even manage to resettle 10-20,000 persons annually.
The fact-finding mission was carried out with a view to preparing two reports on the European Refugee Fund and its allocation for 2008-2013 (codecision report) and on the creation of a joint resettlement system (own-initiative report). In his report, Tavares considers that a “fair and realistic migration policy in the European Union, entailing the establishment of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS), must comprise an effective resettlement programme, providing a durable solution for refugees who cannot return to their country of origin and whose protection cannot be assured in first countries of asylum”. He considers that “resettlement serves not only a humanitarian purpose towards persons resettled, but also to relieve third countries of the burden associated with hosting large numbers of refugees”. According to the rapporteur, currently “only 10 member states resettle refugees on a yearly basis, with little coordination among themselves on the resettlement priorities, causing a lack of strategic use of resettlement as an EU external policy instrument”.
The case of Iraq is, according to Amnesty International (AI), one of the most urgent. In its report, “Rhetoric and Reality: the Iraqi Refugee Crisis”, AI considers that the international community's response to this crisis was totally unsuitable. AI states that “countries like Jordan and Syria host most of the refugees but are simply not equipped to meet the needs of all those arriving. Syria alone may be hosting more than a million refugees. As of 2007, only 1% of the total Iraqi displaced population was estimated to be in the industrialised world”, the organisation states. In September 2009, EU member states supported the future establishment of a joint European resettlement programme for refugees from third countries, on a voluntary basis (EUROPE 9981). The EU effort focuses primarily on Iraqi refugees from Syria and Jordan, Somali refugees from Kenya, and Sudanese refugees from Chad. (B.C./F.B./transl.jl)