Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-20-Speech-4-029"
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"en.20010920.4.4-029"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, I believe that the Committee, which adopted this version of the report by a majority, is on the wrong track. Let me explain briefly what I mean. About a year ago, when the Commission submitted its working document, we attempted to reach a compromise on this very difficult and sensitive issue. We agreed that we would distinguish between three specific groups: firstly, asylum seekers; secondly, persons who come to us on a temporary basis from crisis regions; and finally, people who wish to migrate to the Member States in order to make their lives here.
In particular, we all recognised that we could only regulate the last pillar, that is, immigration, sensibly by ensuring that the number – I am choosing my words carefully – of unfounded asylum applications can be reduced, at least that we can process them consistently.
We all know that no more than 10% or 15% of the applications submitted are genuinely well-founded and likely to be recognised under the Geneva Convention. This is where the Committee and a majority of its members have made two errors, in my view: firstly, it has abandoned the consensus which we worked so hard to achieve and, secondly, it has done no service at all to genuine applicants who are politically persecuted, because it also treats everyone who enters Germany or another Member State without a well-founded claim in more or less the same way and thus undermines the standing of genuine applicants.
Expanding the rights of asylum to include new forms of (non-state) persecution, restricting the opportunities of Member States – at least those Member States which have to cope with large influxes – to make effective use of the ‘safe country of origin’ principle, but also the issue of how manifestly unfounded applications should be dealt with – indeed, the entire contents of this report – means that there is longer any way of taking effective action when large numbers of unfounded applications are made.
I appeal to you yet again! I know this is a difficult issue. I also know this is a sensitive issue. However, let us try to uphold the details of these common pillars which we discussed a year ago, and where there was plenty of scope to reach a consensus. I hope that the German Social Democrats – who adopt an entirely different tone in their dealings with their Home Affairs Minister in Germany – might change their voting behaviour today. I also hope that we will again find a way of achieving consensus which will enhance the status of those who have genuinely suffered political persecution and seek asylum in the Member States."@en1
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