Brdo, 25/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - Despite the smooth enlargement of the Schengen Area to nine new member countries last month, EU member states are now facing greater mobility by asylum seekers within the EU, explained EU interior ministers at a meeting in Brdo pri Kranju, Slovenia, on Friday 25 January 2008.
The participants at the meeting felt they had done their duty, hailing the successful expansion of the Schengen Area to include nine new countries on 21 December 2007 (see EUROPE 9570), with EU Security Commissioner Franco Frattini describing it ahead of the meeting as a 'huge success'. EU external border controls are 'stronger' and have led to hundreds of people being arrested as suspected illegal immigrants, he said, adding that the border controls had helped stop people entering the EU. German interior minister Peter Altmeier said: 'For Germany, none of the fears has come true,' adding that Germany had figures showing that there had not been any significant increase in the numbers of illegal immigrants. Austrian interior minister Gunther Platter, however, said that Austria had 'stopped many illegals in the border area' and was 'vigilant and watching the situation closely'.
Asylum seekers move around too much. Although there are not yet any statistics backing up the claim that the number of asylum seekers moving around the EU is on the increase, several member states (including Austria, Germany and France) say they are facing the arrival of more asylum seekers, particularly Chechens, from countries like Poland and Slovakia. Under the Dublin II Regulation, Chechens entering the EU in Poland and travelling on to Germany have to lodge their asylum applications in Poland, unless they can demonstrate close family ties in Germany or have a visa for Germany. Altmeier said that a number of Chechen families had travelled to Germany to seek asylum and had been sent back to Poland in line with 'normal procedures' under the Dublin II Regulation. French interior minister Michelle Alliot-Marie said that solidarity had to be set up, adding that France was facing many requests for asylum. She predicted that at some point in the future, because of genocide for example, a country might face a flood of asylum seekers over a very short period of time.
Harmonisation of asylum procedures recommended. Commissioner Frattini said that all these problems were connected with differences between member states and the lack of harmonisation in national legal systems. Slovenian interior minister Dragutin Mate, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency, said it was clear that a uniform procedure was needed for processing asylum applications. The ministers all agreed, but some, like Altmeier, recognised that it would take years to get this in place. In this connection, Frattini said that he was planning to submit a package of measures in July 2008 on the completion of an EU common asylum system by 2011. The measures will be drawn from the June 2007 Green Paper (see EUROPE 9440) and current debates and will cover issues like uniform asylum procedures and defining a uniform status for refugees and people benefiting from subsidiary protection. Alongside this legislation, the European Commission is planning to amend the directive on the conditions under which asylum seekers are welcomed and the Dublin II Regulation with the aim of ensuring greater harmonisation of asylum procedures, laws and national processing conditions to stop asylum seekers shopping around from one country to another to find the best situation.
Better cooperation in the field. In parallel with harmonisation of the law, the ministers also agreed on the need to strengthen practical and operational cooperation between the different countries, explained Mate at a press conference. He said closer cooperation was materialising through better training of officials, supplying interpreters, the exchange of best practice and, above all, the creation of an EU support office to exchange cooperation and best practice among the member states. The Commission will be publishing a feasibility study on the office in July 2008. Portugal's interior minister, Rui Pereira, said that ministers wanted a website of information on 'safe countries'. The move to draw up a list of 'safe countries' last year came to naught, but the idea is expected to be mooted again now that the new Treaty is introducing codecision decision-making for such measures. If the new EU support office is set up, it might be given the job of creating the website. (B.C.)