Brussels, 08/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - As a ministerial conference on asylum policy was beginning on Monday 8 September in Paris under the French presidency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called on EU member states to build a genuine “Europe of Asylum”. António Guterres, the UNHC said in a press statement on Monday that this was an unprecedented and ambitious adventure, as well as a unique opportunity to strengthen refugee protection. He also added that such a system could provide an example for the whole world once protection for refugees was really guaranteed. However, he did state that the EU had to provide protection for asylum seekers because the higher the barriers went up, the more difficult it would be for them to prevent refugees falling into the hands of people traffickers. In 2007, there were 220,000 asylum seekers in the EU27, while 7 years earlier in the EU15, there were 400,000. The UNHCR also called on member states to put a stop to the disparities between them on the quality of decisions to approve or disapprove asylum. An Iraqi or Afghan asylum seeker does not therefore have the same chance of obtaining protection in Greece, Sweden or Germany and when they do obtain it, the status and rights are often different too. Guterres said that the European Union can and had to do better with regard to the resettlement of third country refugees. (B.C./trans/rh)