12/10/2009 (Agence Europe) -United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has urged the European Union to stop treating immigrants as scapegoats. In an interview in the Financial Times on Monday 12 October, Guterres says he fears the development of attitudes in public opinion that tend to turn foreigners, particularly asylum seekers, into scapegoats for the current economic crisis. He also urged the EU to put an end to the malfunctioning of its asylum policy and called on London to consider allowing some of the would-be immigrants in Calais that have family in the UK to come and live in the UK. Expressing concern about the situation in the Mediterranean where potential asylum seekers are being deported to Libya, Guterres said that agreements with Libya could solve the problems of the countries affected by flows of immigrants, but could not protect the fundamental rights of the individuals concerned. He said that the EU's problem could not be solved by hiving off responsibility for the protection of immigrants to Libya. (B.C./transl.fl)