EC asylum procedures
01 September 1992
Britain and Ireland are the only two EC states to deny asylum-seekers a right of appeal against the refusal of their application, according to a recent survey. The survey, carried out by the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and External Affairs, was completed in October 1991, and revealed very wide discrepancies in the treatment of asylum-seekers from country to country within the EC.
Only in France, Germany, Italy and Portugal is the right to asylum enshrined in the constitution, although all other states theoretically comply with the provisions of the 1951 Geneva Convention. Denmark refuses entry to anyone without the necessary travel documents. Belgium refuses those who have a ticket for transport to a third country, those who have lived in another country for over three months, those who have already been expelled, and those who constitute a "danger to public safety and order". In Germany, entry can be refused only to those who have established residence in a safe third country. Greece, Spain and France reject those who already have the protection of a safe third country. Theoretically this is the same for the UK, although in practice asylum-seekers who have spent two hours in a transit lounge in a European airport, or who have been smuggled across Europe in lorries, are invariably returned to the last country they embarked from.
According to the survey, the Netherlands appears to be the only EC country to have set up "accelerated procedures" to deal with applicants arriving at Netherlands airports. The introduction of such "accelerated procedures" is one of the measures which the European Commission would like to see generalised across Europe. In its Communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the Right of Asylum, also published in October 1991, the Commission makes clear that its main priority is to "combat abuse of the right to asylum" - abuse which it blames both for the rising numbers of asylum-seekers and for the growth of far-right opposition groups in Europe. Apart from the accelerated or abridged procedures to deal with what it calls manifestly ill-founded applications, the Commission's other main proposals are harmonisation of procedures and substantive law on asylum; advanced implementation of the information exchange provisions of the Dublin Convention on Asylum-Seekers, to enable countries to share information about refugees' countries of origin; a common definition of what is a "manifestly ill-founded" application; and the immediate ratification of the Dublin Convention (to prevent "multiple applications" in different countries).
The Commission points approvingly to the initiatives taken by member states to dissuade asylum-seekers, including measures "aimed at making the material situation of asylum-seekers less attractive while their case is being considered: withholding of certain social security benefits, restrictions on employment and freedom of movement", and to the setting up of registers of asylum-seekers, with fingerprints to aid identification and combat multiple applications. It also notes, in the same vein, the restrictive visa policies and carrier sanctions adopted by some member states. It concludes that the treatment of asylum-- seekers throughout the Community needs to be harmonized, so as to avoid an "uneven distribution" with too many asylum-seekers going to states which allow them to live where they want to, to work and to claim social security benefits.
Its proposals and recommendations sit uneasily with its note that only 5 per cent of the world's refugees come to Europe. But it justifies its harsh line by remarking that the vast majority of asylum-seekers are not fleeing persecution, but war, civil war, famine, poverty, chronic unemployment or lack of prospects at home. Needless to say, there is no suggestion that the definition of refugee should be widened to include any of these categories of "bogus" refugee.
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