Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-10-Speech-1-086"
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"en.20000410.4.1-086"2
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"Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Frahm, rapporteur for the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, for her excellent work, the quality of her report, and the support it gives the Commission’s proposal.
As regards amendments, the Commission has taken note of all the proposed amendments and can accept, conditional upon some formal reworking, in some cases, the principles behind a number of them which aim to make the objectives of the European Refugee Fund clearer in the introduction, or to make some terms more precise. One particular case is the mention, in the introduction, of the importance of NGO activities, and there are some useful clarifications, such as transparency in the project selection process, or the need to promote the long-term continuity of projects. The principle of minimal Fund participation enables each Member State to provide effective support, regardless of the extent of flows of refugees.
The Commission cannot, however, go along with other sets of amendments, particularly those on budgetary methods. These will, in any case, become irrelevant if the budgetary authority ratifies the Commission’s proposals to set the allocation for the Fund at EUR 216 million for the five years. It cannot align itself with the amendments on the Member States’ strategy and on setting up a partnership with the various operators affected by asylum policy. This is an initial experiment with a decentralised asylum-related programme. The competent national administrations are by no means familiar with these procedures. In this decision it is important to avoid anything which might add to their workload and slow the process down, without allowing for the fact that the amounts involved are not vast and that if this decision for the year 2000 is adopted this year, that will not leave much time to prepare cofinancing requests. The Commission proposes to take on board some of the ideas put forward in the amendments in terms of defining the practical arrangements for the implementation of this instrument and for the dialogue to be entered into with the relevant national bodies.
Finally, with regard to the amendments for cooperation with candidate countries, I think we must be quite clear on this. The Fund is intended to contribute to balancing Member State efforts. These modest enough resources should not be watered down further by the inclusion of secondary objectives. Cooperation of this type with the candidate countries would duplicate the action of other programmes, especially the PHARE programme for transposing the legislative
and bringing the competent authorities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into line.
In conclusion, Mr President, the Commission is delighted to see the European Parliament support this initiative. I believe that we are now beginning to see the start of a journey dedicated to the values of asylum, a journey which will show that we can all meet the challenge of European solidarity in asylum matters.
You know better than I do that the proposed Council decision on this Fund was adopted by the Commission on 14 December 1999. It is in line with an approach, my own personal approach, which I put forward during my hearing before the European Parliament’s Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. The Fund is a single instrument combining support for Member State actions on the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees and displaced persons, which were previously dealt with in joint actions and pilot projects on the basis of appropriations allocated annually to the Community budget on the initiative of the European Parliament.
This Fund is not intended to substitute for Member States’ efforts in the field of refugee reception and integration, but it does represent an initial step, highlighting a key political aspect of European strategy: strategy on asylum must be based on shared responsibility at European level. I think that adopting this Fund contribute to showing that, in this area, the European Union as such can provide added value for the efforts of each individual Member State.
We are setting up a European Refugee Fund for an initial period of five years. The total appropriation for 2000 is EUR 36 million, which includes EUR 10 million for emergency aid. I quite understand the rapporteur’s comments to the effect that this amount is inadequate given the needs and ambitions of the Fund itself. The Commission has already pointed out to the Parliament’s Committee on Budgets that it intends to propose, in its preliminary draft budget for 2001, the financial means to maintain the Fund for the next five years. In other words, the Commission will propose increasing the EUR 36 million for the year 2000 to EUR 45 million for the following years, thus taking the overall allocation for the five years to EUR 216 million. This is, I feel, an initial step in the right direction.
The European Refugee Fund is an instrument for solidarity between Member States, intended, as has already been stressed by several speakers, to contribute to balancing the efforts mentioned in Article 63(2b) of the Treaty. To this end, a proportional distribution of the resources among the Member States is envisaged: firstly in proportion to the number of asylum requests they receive (two thirds of the resources) and secondly in proportion to the number of refugees they accept into their country (one third of the resources).
I can understand why proposals were put forward to consider the number of refugees in relation to the overall population in each Member State. I must admit that the Commission itself attempted to consider this criterion, but we found it extremely hard to come up with a mathematical formula which did justice to the principle of sharing costs and efforts while including this criterion. I am perfectly willing to look into any practical solutions but it is not enough to simply state the principle. A practical solution must be found, and I have to tell you that that is no easy matter.
The European Refugee Fund will be able to cofinance Member State actions up to 50%, a level which can be increased to 75% for Member States benefiting from the Cohesion Fund. The proposed decision also provides for the possibility of financing emergency measures in the event of a massive influx of refugees from a reserve of EUR 10 million. In this respect, it provides an initial response to the request made by the European Council in Tampere.
Together with my fellow Commissioner, Michaele Schreyer, I have already initiated discussions on the ways of utilising, in the event of an emergency, the maximum possible resources suited to the needs of the situation. In this area, however, what worries me more than the figures – because, unfortunately or fortunately, the necessary funds cannot be provided to respond to emergencies such as Kosovo – and what we are looking for is some financial and also administrative mechanism sufficiently perfected to fulfil needs efficiently in an emergency situation.
The selection and administration of Fund projects, as regards structural aspects, are delegated to the Member States within the framework of cofinancing requests. Implementation, monitoring, follow-up and assessment arrangements are based on the existing conditions for Structural Funds."@en1
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