EU: Report from Copenhagen:Trevi & Immigration (feature)
01 May 1993
The meeting of the Immigration/Trevi Ministers (Interior Ministers of the EC) in Copenhagen on 1-2 June carried forward several of the initiatives taken over the past three years. On 1 June the day started with a meeting of the "Troika" (Ministers and officials from Denmark, then holding Presidency of the EC, the UK, as the last holder, and Belgium as the country taking over on 1 July). Immigration and asylum formed the agenda for the rest of the morning when they agreed resolutions on: family reunification, refugees from Yugoslavia and on illegal immigrants within the EC. The whole afternoon, as at the previous meeting in London on 30 November, was taken up with the vexed question of the abolition of internal border controls. In the morning on 2 June, the Ministers took reports from the Trevi Senior Officials Group and signed the ministerial agreement on the European Drugs Unit. In the afternoon the Troika Ministers and their officials, met with the "Friends of Trevi" (the USA, Canada, Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Morocco).
Targeting "illegal" immigrants
The EC is putting in place a number of policies to stop the entry of immigrants and asylum seekers - the Dublin Convention (introducing the "one-stop" rule for asylum seekers), the Parallel Dublin agreements with the EFTA countries, Eastern Europe and Canada, the External Borders Convention (which sets out categories of people to be excluded) and the creation of the European Information computer system (which will include a list of those to be refused entry to the EC). This meeting agreed measures to seek out "illegal" people already resident within the EC, thus opening the way for the harassment of all black and Third World people resident within the EC.
The measure was drawn up the Sub-Group on Expulsion of the Ad Hoc Group on Immigration which was set up in February 1992. It has met 18 times (6 times during the Portuguese presidency, 6 times during the UK presidency and 6 times during the Danish presidency). As is the practice in intergovernmental groups like this police, immigration and security services officers draw up proposals in secret, present their conclusions for Ministerial approval and only then are the contents published. Once adopted resolutions are intended to be common policy guidelines for EC member states and are not subject to parliamentary approval or discussion. In this instance between the final draft of the resolution prepared for the Ministers meeting (dated 16 May 1993) a number of amendments proposed by the French delegation were adopted.
The resolution opens with the general statement that: "it is fundamental to expulsion practices that there should also be effective means of identifying and apprehending those to be expelled" to which a French amendment added the need to improve means for checking and expelling third-country nationals who are in an irregular situation . The measures are intended to target the employment of those known to have entered or remained illegally or those whose immigration status does not allow them to work . Nationals and their families from EFTA countries are excluded from the provisions.
The detailed measures set out those not entitled to remain within the EC as people who 1] "remained unlawfully"; 2] those liable to "expulsion on grounds of public policy or national security"; and 3] those who asylum application has been turned down. Those to be expelled include people working in breach of their entry conditions and those, subject to "immigration/aliens provisions who have been involved in facilitation, harbouring or employment of illegal immigrants". The resolution calls for checks to be made on those "known or suspected" of staying or working without authority. Two further groups are singled out as in need of checks to detect "abuse", people allowed to enter in order to live with their families and those given residence/work permits on the basis of marriage to a person<