Asylum-camp plan ‘gathering momentum’, say Austrians

By Tim King and Wieslaw Horabik

Date: 23/09/04

THE controversial idea that the European Union should finance camps outside its borders for would-be migrants will be floated at next Thursday's (30 September) meeting of justice and home affairs ministers.

Austrian diplomatic sources said the suggestion was gaining momentum, following discussions with the new EU states.

"These countries have the burden of having the external border of the EU and they face pressure from refugees," an Austrian diplomat said. "This is a question of European solidarity."

A meeting last week of home affairs ministers from Austria and the three Baltic states proposed creating reception camps in Ukraine to hold refugees fleeing Chechnya. "They constitute a problem for our countries," an Austrian official said.

The idea was angrily rejected by the Ukrainian government and was criticized by Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

But the Austrian government is determined that reception camps should be considered, albeit as part of an EU approach that encompasses negotiations with the countries from which the migrants originate and the transit countries through which they pass, as well as harmonized procedures and standards for the treatment of asylum requests in the EU.

Austria has experienced an influx of refugees from Russia, "many of them claiming to be Chechens", the official said.

In Poland, 300 Chechens applied for refugee status in September. Since the start of the year there have been more than 3,700 such applications nationwide.

But the official said the EU's discussion should not draw distinctions between refugees coming from the north and east, and refugees coming from the Mediterranean. Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schilly proposed reception camps for economic migrants in June. Italy, which faces pressure from migrants from North Africa, has already come out in favour of the idea, with Rocco Buttiglione, soon to be the European commissioner for justice, freedom and security, backing the reception camps.

Last year the European Council in Thessaloniki quietly shelved suggestions from the UK that the EU might set up centres outside its member states' territory to process claims from asylum seekers.

A spokesman for the European Commission said: "Schilly's ideas seems to deal with economic migrants. Asylum seekers have a right and we have duties under the Geneva Convention. But illegal migrants are a different matter."

He said the Commission had not worked on the possibility of reception camps for economic migrants although it had suggested ideas to improve the capacity of countries outside the EU to cope." The Austrians regard next Thursday's informal Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers in The Hague as an opportunity to test sentiment.

"We will see at the informal council what the chance of making progress on this idea is," the official said.

The Austrians said that they had also discussed their ideas with Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. In the longer term, they want to see a European Asylums Agency created.

A spokesman for the Dutch presidency said the Baltic states and Austria had not put forward any proposals for the informal council. But he said there would be a discussion of migration policy and Schilly's ideas were likely to be discussed.

Article previews an informal Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers on 30 September 2004 and the proposal by some Member States to create reception camps for asylum seekers outside the EU's territory.

• Primary Source

European Commission: DG Justice and Home Affairs: Freedom, Security and Justice: Asylum http://ec.europa.eu/comm/justice_home/fsj/asylum/fsj_asylum_intro_en.htm

---