Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-18-Speech-4-063"
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"en.19991118.5.4-063"2
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"Mr President, I am speaking here not only as the rapporteur but also in my capacity as the spokesman of the European People’s Party, but first of all as the rapporteur.
We need the Eurodac system. I am most fervently in favour of it because it takes us towards achieving a common asylum policy for Europe and the Member States are at their wits end over this problem.
We also have here a system against asylum abuse, against illegal immigration. If the Social Democrats and the Greens vote against Eurodac, then they will bear full responsibility if there is further asylum abuse and illegal immigration.
Ladies and gentlemen, I earlier appealed to you all to discuss Eurodac and to vote on it today, because Eurodac is a system that finally enables us to implement the Dublin Convention. In this Dublin Convention, that was concluded in 1990, the responsibility is established of a Member State’s competence to deal with an asylum procedure – according to this agreement, the State responsible is the one in which a refugee first finds safe haven. Up to now control has not been possible because it has not been possible clearly to define a person’s identity. In Eurodac, almost ten years later, we have an instrument that makes possible the clear identification of asylum-seekers and also of illegal immigrants.
What is its purpose? The aim of Eurodac is to help implement what was agreed in Dublin. The aim of Eurodac is to establish once and for all which Member State is responsible for the asylum procedure. The aim of Eurodac is to prevent multiple applications and thereby also to stop social abuse and indirectly it has the effect of sharing the burden. And that too is something quite essential.
Therefore under Eurodac, every Member State is bound to take the fingerprints of all asylum-seekers, all illegal immigrants who are picked up at the border in order to compare whether an application for asylum has already been submitted anywhere else. The Member States also have the opportunity of fingerprinting illegal immigrants who are found in the Member State itself for the purpose of comparison.
In the discussion, that was very long, very good and very pragmatic, a solution was also reached. On the vote in the Committee on the Eurodac system there was full agreement, only the Group of the Greens was against the system as a whole and introduced proposals for amendment that were such as to completely destroy the Eurodac system. They were rejected. There was also full agreement with the Social Democrats on the system, which we were pleased about. There were proposals for amendment, which aimed to raise the age from 14 to 18 and early cancellation was planned if refugee status was attained. There was a majority here, which was against my opinion as the rapporteur.
The report as a whole was deemed positive and was adopted in plenary session. That is, in the view of the Committee, with the full support of the Social Democrats as well, in Eurodac we have an instrument for an orderly asylum procedure in Europe and for combating abuse. That is all I wish to say with regard to my function as rapporteur.
Now, I will speak in my capacity as the EPP spokesman as well. I am against political groupings always trying to present Eurodac as a system that does not help this monitoring, but is a form of criminalisation because fingerprints are taken. It is not a matter of criminalising somebody, but giving the Member States the responsibility, giving them the duty of dealing with the asylum procedure and also of protecting young people when fingerprints are taken from the age of 14. Because only if we know that they are this age do they of course fall under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or under the Hague Convention and under the protective measures of the Member States. It therefore has a protective function if we also take the fingerprints of young people and this is in full accord with all the Conventions that we possess.
The Greens are against the system and I think that they are simply refusing to face up to reality! They will bear the full responsibility if this system and a proper asylum policy for Europe fail.
Let me just say something else, that I consider to be especially important. I have received from Minister Schily – he is the Minister of the Interior in Germany and a Social Democrat – an urgent plea and an appeal for this Eurodac system to become a reality, with which he went against his own Social Democrats here in the House and against all the others who are attempting not to accept this system. It is remarkable when one is asked as a Christian Democrat to undertake something here against the Left in this House."@en1
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