Brussels, 18/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - France categorically rejects the proposals put forward by the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU derogating from the rule which requires the countries in which migrants arrive to deal with asylum requests, French European Affairs Minister Jean Leonetti is reported by AFP on Monday 18 July to have indicated at the informal meeting of home affairs ministers in Sopot (Poland). “Poland has made some excellent proposals (for a common asylum system) but, if we look at what they are saying, they will take Dublin II out of the (asylum) package as a whole”, regretted Leonetti. He added: “We cannot support any move not to take the package as a whole because that does not seem to us to provide a response to the overall issue of the problem of migratory flows. Getting rid of Dublin II like this could lead to the countries where the migrants first arrived being absolved of all responsibility.”
The Polish Presidency planned to use this meeting to ask the other member states if they intended to take forward the emergency mechanism wanted by the Commission, designed temporarily to suspend returns of asylum seekers to the EU countries with theoretical primary responsibility. The Commission believes that this is a mechanism which, in emergencies, would ease the pressure on countries whose asylum system is being severely stretched by huge inflows of migrants.
Poland was, therefore, to ask the member states if it was worth continuing discussions on the basis of the Commission proposal, rejecting the proposal or dealing with it in a separate proposal. The Polish preference was for separation of the suspension mechanism from the asylum package as a whole, and similarly separating a further delicate proposal - on Eurodac, the database on asylum seekers, which member states want to amend so as to allow police forces to access it.
Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands are among the countries which came come out in support of the Polish idea. France, Germany, Finland and Sweden, however, have given a definite thumbs down and called for the asylum package to remain intact. They feel that the Polish suggestion would simply “shift the problem elsewhere”, according to a source, rather than solving it.
At any rate, member states pledged on 24 June to finalise the asylum package and the European common asylum system by the end of 2012 and, in Sopot, the source continues, the Polish Presidency was “sounding out” the other member states. (S.P./Cor./transl.rt)