Brussels, 07/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on 7 December, the Home Affairs Council managed to secure a political agreement on the minimum standards concerning the procedure for granting and withdrawing the status of refugee in Member states and in conclusions, approved guidelines for following-up the work in view of the adoption of a new draft directive (see yesterday's EUROPE, p. 11). These guidelines concern: 1) the field of application and structure of the directive: it should apply to all requests for production lodged in Member States under the 1951 Geneva Convention. Two questions remain open: the application of the directive to requests for asylum lodged at the border of a Member State and the compulsory application of the directive to other forms of protection; 2) the quality of the decision-making process for examining requests for asylum: according to the council conclusions, the future instrument should notably guarantee: individual examination of each request for asylum, correct information to the seeker, the possibility of conducting a personal enquiry (with an interpreter if necessary), reasonable legal assistance, the possibility of communicating with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the protection of information contained in each file, the exclusion of the detention of a person simply for requesting asylum, special attention to the needs of vulnerable groups; 3) the procedures (normal or accelerated), deadlines, number of appeals, nature and power of appeals bodies and the effect of appeals.