Brussels, 19/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 20 October, the Conference of the Presidents of the political groups of the EU is expected to state whether or not it will approve a compromise with the Council settling the long-running issue of the “correlation tables”, an issue which has for some time now been blocking several directives related to asylum and migration, including the “qualifications” directive (on asylum), the directive on the “single permit” and the directive on the fight against the sexual exploitation of children.
For several months now, the substance of these three draft directives has been concluded and they are now to be voted on by the EP and the Council, but they have not been able to adopt them formally due to this row over the correlation tables.
The problem is that the European Parliament, and the ALDE Group in particular, which is very committed to the subject, have from the very beginning wanted the Council to commit fully to respect the principle of these tables, in this case a detailed report to be presented to the Commission on how these directives have been transposed into national law. The Council, which feels that the exercise is potentially a heavy one and will cause an administrative burden, is calling for a more relaxed application of it.
In fact, this dispute between the EP and the Council has not only blocked directives related to justice and home affairs, but also in a whole range of activities, one source points out.
In September of this year, the Polish Presidency of the EU reached a compromise, rallied by the Council: these tables will indeed present an overview of the national legislative provisions transposing the directives adopted, but “as far as this is possible” for the member states, the source continues.
This compromise, which has been discussed on a number of occasions, did not go down very well with the EP, an institution source told us, as “none of the groups were very happy” and “no common position” has so far been reached. As far as the Council is concerned, however, it is up to the EP to “say what it wants now”, the source continued, stressing that “the directives are ready” and that an agreement on Thursday at the Conference of the Presidents “would make it possible to move forward”.
In the event of a “yes” from the EP, all that would remain for the three directives is to be formally adopted in plenary at a forthcoming session of the Council, most likely in November. Over at the EP, it was hard to say on Wednesday where the tendency lay, as the issue was really supposed to be decided upon during the Conference of the Presidents.
Readers may recall that the three directives in question focus on the criteria for access to international protection and refugee status, on establishing a single work and residence permit for third-country nationals and on criminal sanctions for sexual abuse against children and child pornography. (SP/transl.fl)