Brussels, 02/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 3 December, the European Commission intends to present several proposals to strengthen the rights of asylum seekers in the Union. This packet of measures, of which EUROPE has obtained a copy, contains three proposals. The first aims to improve refugee reception conditions in the EU. The second will help amend the Dublin II regulation of February 2003, which decides that the member state is responsible for examining a demand for asylum. The third consists of a revision of the Eurodac regulation, which in 2003, set up the EU database for comparing asylum seekers and illegal immigrants' finger prints.
To prevent asylum seekers dashing around the EU in search of the best reception conditions, the Commission is planning on harmonising reception conditions upwardly, and subsequently intends to revise the 2003 directive on reception conditions. The Commission approach is based on the principle that no-one should be detained for the simple reason that they have requested international protection. Detention should therefore only be used in exceptional cases. It is seeking to introduce detention conditions that take into account the specific situation of vulnerable people. The proposal also provides legal guarantees to ensure that detention is not arbitrary, as well as guarantees on children only being detained in their own interest. Non-accompanied minors should never be detained. The Commission also wants to ensure that mechanisms are put in place at national levels to identify specific needs and guarantee asylum seekers are well treated. It wants member states to guarantee a sufficient level of reception conditions, particularly at a financial level, while taking into account considerations such as the gender and age of individuals when accommodation is allocated. It wants to provide asylum seekers with access to the labour market in member states six months after the introduction of their request for protection, and assurances that additional restrictions applied by member states do not create a barrier to employment access.
Dublin II, which stipulates that requests for asylum should be processed in the state where the asylum seeker first arrives, helped to resolve the phenomenon of “asylum shopping”. Nonetheless, this regulation is often applied too rigidly and penalises asylum seekers. The Commission is therefore proposing the introduction of greater flexibility in the application of the regulation. This includes the possibility of temporarily suspending, for a 6 month renewable period, the Dublin mechanism, so that asylum requests in a state that is under pressure or which cannot adequately process requests, can be transferred to another state within a given period of time. In order to improve the efficiency of the system, the Commission would like to establish date limits for different kinds of appeals between member states. It is also seeking to clarify procedures, for example, that enable member states to take responsibility for asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons. In an attempt to ensure the best protection standards for asylum seekers, the Commission is specifically proposing to: specify more information before being provided to asylum seekers under the Dublin procedure; introduce additional guarantees on the right to appeal transfer decisions; define clear and delineated circumstances in which asylum seekers subject to the Dublin procedure can be detained; extend the right of family reunification to include members of families that are beneficiaries of subsidiary protection and which reside in another member state; facilitate the right to family reunification, particularly close relatives with whom dependency has been established; expand protection for non-accompanied minors to allow reunification with people close to the family (and not just family members) in another member state who can take care of them.
To use Eurodac efficiently, the Commission seeks to: establish rules to ensure the swift transmission of finger prints to the Eurodac central unit, especially for ensuring that the state responsible for examining asylum requests is correctly identified; update and clarify definitions of different data base management levels, particularly for setting up a management body for major computer systems; unblock data on recognised refugees and allow national asylum authorities to locate them and prevent a refugee recognised in one member states requesting protection in another. Data protection: the Commission wants to establish technical rules to ensure that member states remove data that is no longer necessary for the reasons they were originally collated. This also involves clarifying provisions that enable the Commission and the European Data Base Supervisor to ensure efficient monitoring of member state access of Eurodac data. (B.C./transl.rh)