Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-18-Speech-4-077"
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"en.19991118.5.4-077"2
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"First of all, I would like to say to the honourable Members that in the view of the Commission, the EURODAC Regulation is instrumental to the implementation of the Dublin Convention which determines which Member State is responsible for considering an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States. The Tampere European Council has called for work on EURODAC to be concluded rapidly, and the Commission considers in fact that EURODAC is an important instrument.
On the minimum age-limit my approach is to stick to the compromise minimum age-limit of 14 years which was agreed in previous negotiations, but to accept your amendment which makes it clear that fingerprinting must be carried out in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Migratory movements of people seeking protection unfortunately involve minors. We need to ensure that our arrangements for determining responsibility for asylum applications take account of this reality.
In addition, the age-limit of 14 years was a compromise reached after difficult negotiations. I do not want to reopen the discussion and risk ending up with an even less acceptable solution.
As far as the rules on erasure of data are concerned, the amendments approved by the Committee on Citizens' Rights provide for the erasure of data as soon as anyone covered by the regulation has obtained legal status. I can accept this in relation to people who are apprehended irregularly crossing the external border of the European Union and who are fingerprinted under Article 8 of the regulation. Indeed, the intention behind the current text is that this data should be erased as soon as the person concerned obtains any kind of residence permit. This would include someone who has been admitted as a refugee or under a subsidiary form of protection.
I cannot go that far in relation to data on asylum applicants, but I can accept some of the amendments that have been put forward. If we were to erase all data on asylum applicants as soon as they were granted any kind of legal status, EURODAC would no longer cover situations where an asylum applicant is granted permission to remain in some other capacity for a short time and, at the end of this period, moves to another Member State and claims asylum there. But I can accept the amendment which provides that data on asylum applicants should be erased when the person concerned is recognised as a refugee.
Some Member States consider that a problem arises if people who have been recognised as a refugee in one Member State travel to another Member State and claim asylum there. They have therefore argued that data on recognised refugees should be blocked in the central unit so that statistical data can be compiled to measure the scale of the phenomenon.
I believe that we should take a different approach. If people who have been recognised as refugees in one Member State seek asylum in another Member State this is likely to be because refugees do not enjoy the right to reside in a Member State other than the one in which they were recognised as such. We should seek to remedy this by including refugees within the scope of an instrument defining the circumstances in which a third country national who is legally resident in one Member State may reside in another Member State. I therefore agree that we should now provide that data on recognised refugees should be erased from EURODAC.
Finally, the regulation will not apply to Denmark. This results directly from Denmark's protocol to the Treaty. The Commission does not consider that EURODAC is a measure to build on the Schengen acquis under Article B of the Danish protocol. We understand that Denmark nevertheless may wish to participate in EURODAC, but it remains to be seen what legal formula could be adopted in that case.
The amendments which I propose to accept will strengthen the text of the regulation and I am very grateful to Parliament for the important contribution it has made.
If governments and citizens can be confident that we have effective arrangements in place to decide which state is responsible for considering an asylum claim and to tackle the problem of multiple asylum applications, it will make easier our task of promoting high and fair standards of asylum.
Once the EURODAC Regulation has been adopted, it will be incumbent upon the Council to make similar progress in respect of other asylum instruments. I, myself, will shortly unveil a proposal for a legal basis for the European Fund for Refugees. This will provide financial assistance from the Community budget for the reception, the integration and the voluntary return of refugees, displaced persons and asylum-seekers which is a relevant instrument to give a human dimension to the asylum policy of the Union, as one Member of the House requested just a few moments ago.
I shall also be unveiling a proposal for an instrument on asylum procedures after we have received the opinion of Parliament on our working document towards common standards on asylum procedures. I shall also unveil a new proposal on temporary protection which will draw on our experiences during the Kosovo crisis. Progress on the EURODAC Regulation must be accompanied by real progress in other areas so that we can gradually attain our goal of creating a common European asylum system. A proposal which provides for the systematic fingerprinting of asylum seekers and certain other categories of third country nationals clearly raises sensitive and difficult issues. We therefore need to ensure the highest standards of fairness and transparency for all those affected by the regulation. In particular the most rigorous of data protection standards are required.
When we converted the EURODAC Convention and Protocol into a Community Regulation, we amended it to bring it fully into line with Community law on data protection including the new Treaty Article 286 on data protection arrangements for the Community Institutions. It is up to the authority provided for in Article 286 to ensure the appropriate and adequate use of these data and the application of Community rules.
We also introduced new provisions on monitoring and evaluation under which the Commission will report regularly to the Parliament and to the Council on the concrete functioning of EURODAC.
I am grateful to the Committee on Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and to their rapporteur, Mr Pirker, for the report on the EURODAC Regulation. The report contains a number of useful amendments which I believe will help us to improve the text of the Regulation.
The Commission can accept amendment No 1 to avoid the term 'alien' and instead refer to third country nationals, although we will have to make it clear that the Regulation also covers stateless persons. We can also accept amendment No 2 to the title which introduces a reference to the Dublin Convention. We can also accept the principle of amendment No 6 which makes it clear that there is only a match if fingerprints are identical and not if they are just similar, and we accept also the principle of amendment No 12 which is intended to make it clear that data must never be sent to an asylum applicant's country of origin or used within a Member State for an unrelated purpose. I take this opportunity to assure Mrs Terrón i Cusí that illegal immigrants' fingerprints are only used for the specific purpose of the Dublin Convention – which means for analysis – if they have requested a demand for asylum in another Member State.
The two issues which have been of most concern to the Parliament are the minimum age-limit for fingerprinting and the rules on erasure of data from the central database."@en1
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