Call for asylum rules

Date: 22/04/1999

By Gareth Harding

THE EU's failure to agree on common standards for receiving Kosovar refugees reflects the inadequacies in its overall approach to asylum and immigration issues, according a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in the field.

Just days before the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force, the groups are launching a campaign for a comprehensive Union migration policy to replace the hotchpotch of measures currently in place.

They will recommend next week that governments should fully uphold the international refugee laws they have signed up to, the burden of accommodating refugees should be shared amongst the 15 member states, and the Union should adopt binding legislation setting minimum standards for dealing with asylum-seekers.

Under Amsterdam, asylum and immigration policy will no longer be the exclusive preserve of member states but a shared power with the European Commission. Campaigners hope this will unblock a raft of proposals which have been frozen for months due to squabbling amongst governments.

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) says the Kosovo crisis should spur member states to adopt joint policies to cope with mass influxes of refugees. "After two years of debating ways of promoting a balance of effort, member states should now put differences aside," insists the organisation.

It also stresses that the thousands of displaced persons heading for EU countries should only be evacuated voluntarily, that they should not be kept in detention-like facilities, that family unity must be preserved at all costs and that the United Nations Refugee Convention should be applied in full.

EU foreign ministers are due to meet their Albanian and Macedonian counterparts next Tuesday (27 April) to explore ways of helping the two countries to cope with the half a million refugees sheltering in their territory. Meanwhile, Acting Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner Emma Bonino is examining ways to get part of the €150 million in EU aid earmarked for the region into Kosovo.