Athens, 24/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - What will future European justice and home affairs policies be like? That was the question raised on Friday 24 January by the Greek Presidency addressing European home ministers and their representatives meeting in Athens. The heads of state and/or government are to meet in June this year to adopt “strategic guidelines” at a summit on this theme. Paving the way for this, the Presidency had prepared a document setting out five priorities to guide the work of member states, with the fight against illegal immigration and the integration of legal migrants taking pride of place. Athens, which is faced to a greater extent than other countries with major migratory flows and which is often named and shamed for its management of asylum requests, believes it will be appropriate to raise the question, during this examination of so-called JHA policies, as to whether the existing instruments truly allow illegal immigration to be countered, in favour of legal immigration.
The Presidency also asked what means are available for better cooperation between member states and for managing emergency situations, in the event of considerable migratory flows for example. Solidarity, which is a principle that Greece and the southern countries are keen on, mainly when it comes to sharing the burden of migrants, should be used as a base on which to build for some of the European policies on asylum, even if it is no longer a matter of calling for a new Dublin regulation.
The minister responsible for protecting citizens and public law and order, Nikos Dendias, also argued on Friday that future policies should seek to tackle extremism, xenophobia and racism.
Another discussion, however, on the sidelines of this debate on JHA policies, proved to be more substantial on Friday morning, in this case bearing upon counter-terrorism and border security. While more and more European fighters are leaving for Syria and some returning to Europe, ministers asked how to use the existing instruments in order to combat terrorism. Such instruments are the Schengen Information Systems (SIS 2), the VIS (visa information system) for visas issued within the Schengen area, and the “Smart Borders” system for entry and exit, as well as the future European PNR programme, which is blocked by the European Parliament but which ministers are doing everything they can to bring back to life.
Greece's Home Minister Nikos Dendias said it was not a matter of linking illegal immigration directly to terrorism. “There is no systematic link between the two”, he opined, asserting it was necessary to put the existing European instruments to best use in order to prevent terrorism from exploiting illegal immigration.
European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström sounded a note of caution, saying that the PNR (passenger name record transfers in order to counter terrorism) “is not a 'migration' instrument” and that there should not be too much “overlapping between instruments”. She went on to point out that any new instrument set in place in the future should also present robust safeguards (for protecting fundamental rights) and limit access, for example. This is precisely what the commissioner had requested in 2011 when she finally approved access, albeit conditional access, by national police forces to the fingerprint database of asylum seekers, EURODAC. (SP/transl.jl)