Brussels, 06/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Internal Affairs Council, which is meeting on 7 December in Brussels under the chairmanship of Antoine Duquesne and in the presence of European Commissioner Antonio Vitorino, will essentially examine issues relating to refugee status and border controls. The session will be followed at 11h30 by a ministerial meeting of the Joint Committee with Iceland and Norway, under the chairmanship of Ms Petursdottir, Justice Minister for Iceland.
The work of the Council will unfold as follows:
1. Minimum norms concerning the procedure for granting and withdrawing refugee status in the Member States. In September, this issue was the subject of a ministerial debate that had sketched out guidelines on concrete questions, in order to reach a political agreement in December (see EUROPE of 29 September, p.10). The issue has been on the ministers' table for about one year now, but it seems that there is no political will to make any move forward with a view to developing a new proposal of directive, although there are no longer any technical obstacles as the Commission had proposed minimum common norms.
2. European concept for the management of border controls. The Council will hold a policy debate on the basis of a report from the Presidency, which hopes to ensure "closer cooperation and mutual technical assistance between the control services at the borders of the States, mainly in the form of exchange programmes and the transfer of technologies, particularly at maritime borders". The candidate States should be involved in this cooperation without delay, pursuant to the conclusions of the Tampere Summit.
The report mainly aims to: 1) strengthen and harmonise border controls at European level; 2) help candidate States to organise controls at the future external borders of the EU through the setting in place of cross-border cooperation; 3) facilitate crisis management with regard to border controls; and 4) prevent illegal immigration and other forms of cross-border crime. Ministers should confirm that the strategic committee on immigration, borders and asylum must proceed to examination of a series of measures (such as the finalisation of uniform training for all services responsible for border controls, not limited to police services, through, for example, the creation of a European institute for training relating to the prevention and control of illegal immigration), in conformity with the Coreper decision of 21 November. This decision provides for those in charge of services responsible for border controls to meet at least once every six months within this strategic committee, and to involve the candidate countries in their work at least once a year. The report should also make an inventory of the various concrete initiatives already taken regarding cooperation in border controls, as, for example, the "lightning" operation this autumn geared to cooperation with candidate states in this field.
3. Provisions for application of Eurodac. The Council will examine the only question still outstanding concerning the enforcement of the provision of application of the Eurodoc regulation, which aims at the collection and comparison of fingerprints of asylum seekers and of certain other foreigners in the Member States. The aim is to be able to identify those seeking asylum who may have requested asylum from more than one Member State. A very large majority of delegations stated their willingness to forward "rolled" fingerprints.
The Council will then confirm the lifting of the visa obligation for Romanian nationals from 1 January 2002 (see EUROPE of 1 and 2 October, p.11). The Joint Committee with Iceland and Norway should then give a favourable opinion on lifting the visa obligation, examine the development of the Schengen 2nd generation information system and note: a) a report from the Presidency on consular cooperation; and b) the move forward in work on visas (model type).