International

I am the member responsible within our political group in the European Parliament for negotiations regarding the Dublin Regulation, the system that regulates which member state is responsible for dealing with a particular request for asylum. The member states have recently agreed their position, one which rejected every amendment from the Parliament designed to make the system somewhat more humane. This is, however, not the final word on the matter, because Parliament and Council (which directly represents the member states), must eventually come to a compromise agreement. But it’s certainly an ominous sign. It fits very well with the current Dutch government’s policy. Asylum seekers are continually being put behind bars, despite the fact that this is in conflict with European rules, while illegally extending your stay has been made a punishable offence. An icy climate, and not only in the winter…

The Dublin Regulation governs responsibility for the processing of applications for asylum within the European Union. In principle the application must be handled at the point of entry into the EU. There is of course an element of unfairness in this, because some member states have a longer external border than others. In countries such as Greece this is leading to enormous problems. The Greeks have never shone when it comes to establishing a just asylum procedure, but in some ways I can understand their situation. At the present time most asylum seekers who enter the EU do so through Greece and the country must therefore process huge numbers of applications.

This week I spoke with the Dutch candidate for director of the new European asylum agency. He assured me that improving the situation in Greece was his number one priority. Yet what is needed is also a sort of emergency procedure, such as the one proposed by the European Commission, so that countries confronted by a flood of applications for asylum can reckon on the support of other member states willing to accept and process a limited number of these applications. Just this kind of emergency procedure was, however, rejected by the member states. Although Greece continues to work on improving its own procedures, without an emergency system this will grow ever more difficult : the number of applications for asylum is at the moment simply too great.

Other improvements to the system, proposed by the EP, were also rejected. So for example, care will no longer be taken to ensure that families are not divided. It is also striking that the member states want to see the back of the rules regarding detention. Clearly more countries are looking to adopt the Dutch system, under which detention is no longer the exception but the rule, imposed immediately on rejection of an application. In a number of cases this even applies to children, and to former asylum seekers willing to cooperate in leaving the country, but whose country of origin will not accept them back. In short, the asylum policy is no longer humane, no longer ‘strict but just’, but absolutely ice-cold. I have therefore still a great deal to do in relation to this, in order at least to contribute to demonstrating that from the European Parliament more humane voices can be heard.