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EU: Dublin Convention

01 January 1993

The eight member states which have not so far ratified the Dublin convention (applying the first safe country principle to asylum- seekers within Europe, and allowing detailed exchange of information on them), agreed at the Immigration Ministers meeting on 30 November in London to do so as soon as possible in 1993. The Convention has led to an increase in the "refugees in orbit" phenomenon whereby asylum-seekers are shuttled backwards and forwards between European airports. Until recently, the High Court in London refused to examine any return of an asylum-seeker to another European country, but recently it has asked the Home Office to stay its hand in a few cases where the country concerned has indicated unequivocally that it will send the asylum-seeker straight back to Britain. The British government is one of the four countries which has ratified the convention. It was "laid" before parliament and ratified without no debate (see Statewatch vol 2 no 5).

Ministers asked the Ad Hoc Group on Immigration to speed up work on the European automated fingerprint recognition system (EURODAC). In the Committee stage of the Asylum Bill Kenneth Clarke rather disingenuously referred to this as a "feasibility study" and indicated that the government was not at all committed to the exchange of asylum-seekers' fingerprints with other European countries - although one of the grounds for being manifestly unfounded is to have made an application elsewhere, which can most easily be checked through fingerprints. Further Euro-acronyms surfaced at the meeting: CIREA, the Centre for information, discussion and exchange on asylum, and CIREFI the Centre for information, discussion and exchange on the crossing of borders and immigration. The former has just started work, and the latter is to be established.s