Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, France) is the European Parliament rapporteur on the Dublin 3 Regulation, which determines the responsibility of Member States in processing asylum applications. She will assess this in a report to be presented in mid-March. As the Commission prepares a long-awaited Pact on Migration and Asylum for this spring, the former mayor of Strasbourg takes stock for EUROPE of what she thinks the Commission should focus on. (Interview by Solenn Paulic)
Agence Europe - You met Commissioner Ylva Johansson in Strasbourg last week. What is happening to the May 2016 revision text? Is the report of your predecessor, Cecilia Wikström, obsolete?
Fabienne Keller - The Commission seems to be moving towards renewing a number of elements of the Asylum Package, including the Dublin Regulation, but probably not all of them, as the main findings are almost the same as those of 2016. Cecilia Wikström's work therefore remains entirely valid and I hope that it will form one of the building blocks of this future Pact. But we have to deal with another, difficult reality: while migration flows have decreased significantly, it is still difficult to manage asylum procedures. This reform is more than indispensable.
On 19 February, you organised a hearing in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the functioning of the current Dublin Regulation (Dublin III). What did you draw from this?
The interest of this hearing was to show the different national practices. We now have a directly applicable regulation, but we are touching on national sovereignty and we have very different organisations from one Member State to another, with differences in procedures that make the routes taken by asylum seekers very different from one country to another. There are also people who migrate and use the visa facilities in one country to go to another country to make an asylum claim. All these human pathways are respectable, because, at the heart of it, everyone is looking for a better future, fleeing from conflict, but not always.
It is our responsibility to set the rules: how do we grant asylum to those who need it and how do we ensure the return of those who are not eligible? Dialogue with countries of origin is a priority. There is also the issue of labour migration. We need a more structured labour migration policy. The Pact will be a mosaic of responses.
Is the Dublin system as we know it, with its country-to-country transfer mechanism under the first country of entry, dead?
I think we need to set clear rules and be able to apply them. And to do this, we need a better understanding of the procedures, the routes taken by asylum seekers. For example, for a person who applies for asylum in a Member State, there are generally four main reasons: the recognition rate for his or her country of origin, reception and housing conditions, the link with the family or a community or a language facility and the labour market in the State where the application is lodged. We need to take better into account each one’s motivation to improve the processing of asylum applications.
For this reason, the transfer rates of Dublin asylum seekers ('Dubliners' under the country of first entry principle) are not very high despite the efforts made by Member States over the last 2 years regarding this scheme. The current Dublin Regulation already provides for, as a first criterion for determining the State responsible for examining an asylum application, the applicant's family ties or family reunification. However, it is the criterion of the country of first entry that is most applied today.
One of the problems with the last reform was the compulsory relocation mechanism. Do you think such a mechanism should be maintained in the future Pact?
The Court of Auditors has made it clear that these relocation exercises of 2015 have not worked as they should. Solidarity mechanisms are essential and the Commission seems to be moving towards a mechanism either for receiving or for providing financial aid, which will be a way out for the Visegrad countries. Forcing people into a territory will never work; Hungarians take in very few people.
Without mandatory distribution, how can we respond to situations such as those in Lesbos and the Moria camp, where thousands of people are trapped, sometimes for years?
We're going to Greece next month. The situation there is very particular, the Greek and Turkish coasts can be seen. There are 4.5 million migrants in Turkey: it is not surprising that there are a few who come, and Lesbos is saturated; there are 14,000 migrants on this island. In addition, there are a significant number of files and appeals pending. Greece has not had economic growth either. It's hard for Greece, but we're in a national sovereign situation and the country doesn't necessarily live well with the EU's injunctions. We have to see how we can cooperate while respecting Greek authority, support it, but not replace it. What the EU can do is to provide mechanisms for temporary aid, for appropriate solidarity, an idea that I test at each of my meetings. We'll see what they think in Greece.