Brussels, 20/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 19 September, after four years of negotiations, MEPs of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee validated a compromise reached with Council on the conditions in which asylum seekers are hosted in the EU. The compromise was, however, criticised by the NGOs as it keeps in place the possibility for asylum seekers to be detained in prisons. In parallel to the Dublin II regulation, which was also voted on Wednesday and which aims to determine which member states are responsible for processing a request for asylum - for example when the asylum seeker entered the EU by one member state but applied for asylum in another - the directive on the conditions of reception aims to ascertain the terms and conditions for taking the applicants in while their request for asylum is being processed, and also a number of the rights of asylum seekers (e.g. their right to gain access to the labour market).
According to the text referred to the committee by Antonio Masip Hidalgo (S&D, Spain) and voted by 45 votes in favour to 9 against and 4 abstentions, the reasons for detention of asylum seekers have thus been reduced, a Parliament press release states. The Parliament adds that asylum seekers should have access to a member state's labour market no later than nine months after filing an application for international protection, compared to the 12 months at present.
Under the agreed text, an asylum seeker may only be detained for the following reasons: to check his/her identity; to verify the elements of his/her application for international protection; to decide on his/her right to enter the member state's territory; to protect national security and public order; to prepare his/her return to his/her home country if the member state can substantiate, on the basis of objective criteria, that there are reasonable grounds to believe that he/she makes the application for international protection merely in order to delay or frustrate the enforcement of the return decision; or in the context of a transfer to another member state, under the Dublin II regulation on responsibility for asylum seekers.
The Parliament wishes to point out that the directive dating back to 2003 did not include any grounds for detention, leaving that decision “open to member states' interpretation”.
According to the compromise text, unaccompanied minors may only be placed in detention as a very last resort. Detention “would be for the shortest period and all efforts should be made to release them and place them in more suitable centres”, the Parliament states. Unaccompanied minors would only be detained “in exceptional circumstances” and may not be held in prisons. According to the agreement, the children in question would also be kept separately from the adults.
The Parliament also sought to make a breakthrough on more general conditions of detention of asylum seekers. Although Parliament negotiators wanted no asylum seeker to be placed in prison, it only received from the Council a general rule stipulating that detention should be in specialised centres. Exceptions are possible, for example, “if an EU country cannot provide accommodation in one of these centres and is obliged to place the asylum seeker in a prison”, in which case he/she should be kept separately from ordinary prisoners and have access to open-air spaces.
Finally, access to the labour market of a member state would be possible for asylum seekers within nine months after filing an application for international protection, the Parliament states.
The compromise, which has still to be formally adopted by the EU Council of Ministers and by plenary at the end of the year, is not warmly received by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), which deplores the fact that detention remains possible in many cases. The fact that member states are not under an obligation to have the decision to place an asylum applicant in detention automatically assessed by an administrative authority, and that the reasons for placing that person in detention are very sweeping, will produce situations of systematic and arbitrary detention, ECRE explains in a note to the press.
ECRE considers that with over 90% of asylum seekers having entered Europe illegally, detention, for example to verify the identity or nationality of asylum seekers, will authorise the systematic detention of asylum seekers. The association also deplores the fact that the provision authorises detention of unaccompanied minors even in exceptional circumstances and also that it is still possible to place asylum seekers in prisons. (SP/transl.jl)