Luxembourg, 09/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is trying to ward off any further deadlock on the draft asylum legislation and, at a meeting of EU27 interior ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday 11 June 2011, it reassured member states concerned about the legislation unveiled on 1 June about asylum procedures.
In the draft legislation, the Commission tried to reconcile the demands of the EU Council of Ministers and the concerns of the European Parliament, hoping to achieve the aim of having an EU asylum system up and running by 2013. Several countries, particularly Germany, France and the United Kingdom, have expressed reservations about the two items of legislation and at the meeting, presented a joint letter drawn up on 27 May 2011 setting out their core issues.
The three countries joined forces to “advise” the Commission in its drafting of the 1 June draft legislation amending draft legislation published in 2008 and 2009 that has not yet been endorsed by the Council of Ministers, which sees it as cumbersome and costly. The French delegation, in particular, opposes the legislation, saying that in its current format, it was heading for a brick wall. Paris says the Commission has not conceded enough to the Council of Ministers and has not changed enough.
For example, the Commission suggested new conditions on 1 June to decide when member states would be allowed to make greater use of rapid asylum request processing for requests deemed in an initial examination to be unfounded (the “procedures” directive) but has not removed measures which would allow asylum seekers to access the job market in the member states. In the latest proposals, the Commission suggests that after an initial six months, asylum seekers should be allowed to work but lets the member states decide how many hours they can work each week and what sort of jobs they can take. Germany, France and the UK argue that this should be extended to a year. Another concern to the three countries is the Commission's suggested options about welfare, which, they fear, could encourage people to abuse the asylum system for economic motives, which would be a burden for the more generous member states. Another area of concern set out in the joint letter is the degree of harmonisation of asylum systems. The UK, for example, says that involvement in such harmonisation would not be in its interests.
To get round these problems, EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and the Hungarian Presidency have written a memorandum for the minsters attending the meeting in Luxembourg, in which the commissioner pointed out what was at stake while focusing on a handful of issues seen as crucial by the member states.
In the memorandum, Malmström explains that asylum systems have to be fair and effective and provide basic guarantees to all asylum seekers, particularly those in real need of international protection, but flexibility is also required for the member states so they can clamp down on abuse of the system through the use of new conditions under which they can process asylum requests deemed to be false more speedily and adjust the rules on asylum-seekers' rights to work. The Commissioner mentions the draft Eurodac legislation to set up a fingerprint database of all asylum-seekers, taking up an idea recommended by the Council of Ministers to allow the police to have access to the database under strict conditions.
The memorandum has been welcomed by France, which sources say describes it as a way of focusing the debate on key issues for the Council of Ministers without getting bogged down in the details. (S.P./transl.fl)