Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-22-Speech-1-110"
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"en.20030922.7.1-110"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to begin by thanking my colleagues in the committee for their helpful cooperation. The committee as good as unanimously rejects the Austrian initiative to set up a list of what are known as safe third states.
All of us want European asylum and refugee policy to be based upon humanitarianism and legal certainty. Most of us want to see regulated immigration and an asylum policy that offers protection and sanctuary to those who are persecuted or tortured or whose lives or health are in danger. Unscrupulous traffickers in human beings must not be protected by the EU’s asylum policy. Nor, however, can asylum policy mean our using gunboats to command vessels containing refugees to heave to or even, as one Italian minister said, using them to fire on such vessels. Nor can it mean treating people who make their way to our part of the world as second-class citizens, moving them around and assembling them in camps outside the borders of the EU.
If, Commissioner Vitorino, the EU cannot successfully integrate immigrants and refugees and provide a framework for an asylum policy characterised by humanitarianism and legal certainty, we have a time bomb ticking away that is just waiting to explode into social and economic tensions within the EU and into external pressure from all those who are outside and want to come in. Let us never forget that the Geneva Convention gives every person his or her own unique right to seek asylum in a foreign country in order to escape persecution and suffering.
This proposal defines a safe third state as one that has ratified the Geneva Convention, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The list of European safe third states includes the current 15 EU Member States and the 12 accession countries, as well as Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. Of the 15 countries that are mentioned on the list, only Switzerland should, however, actually remain on it. Why? On 16 April 2003, the ten Member States signed the accession treaty in Athens whereby the Dublin II Regulation and the Schengen Regulation would, in future, apply to them. Romania and Bulgaria would not be covered by the Dublin II Regulation until the Council had made a decision ‘at a later date’ (Article 6. 2 of the proposal). With regard to Norway and Iceland, the Regulation will also only be applicable, via the Dublin II Regulation and Schengen Acquis, once they have given notice that they accept its content and are incorporating it into their national legal systems. For these reasons, Mr President and Commissioner, only Switzerland would remain on the list, that is to say the list would be very limited.
Moreover, the Commission is called upon to monitor developments in the third states included on the list with regard to their compliance with the aforementioned principles, but the initiative fails to put forward any specific procedure for removing countries from the list or adding them to it. The committee points out that, respecting the subsidiarity principle, any criteria for drawing up a list of safe third states must be seen as minimum standards, which allow the Member States to enforce higher standards. Only four Member States – the UK, Germany, Finland and Denmark – currently have lists of safe third states, either by law or administrative practice.
The committee therefore questions whether a regulation is the most appropriate instrument, forcing many countries to implement changes without a political debate on the principles involved. The committee also emphasises that the issue of safe third states is dealt with in the Directive on Asylum Procedures and should be dealt with there in the future too. My remarks about whether a common list really is desirable – which is something I very much question – are of a personal nature.
The Italian Presidency, which should be present in this House, has promised that the framework Directive on Asylum Procedures will be ready during the autumn. That was also stated in Thessaloniki. We, in this Assembly, have conveyed that we wish to be consulted again once the directive has been redrafted. What is the situation regarding this matter? I had thought of putting the question to the Italian minister, but I cannot see anyone in the minister’s place. It would have been interesting to know whether we shall be consulted on this issue, but that is something Commissioner Vitorino may be able to answer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we would – all in all and in the light of these arguments – ask Parliament to reject Austria’s initiative tomorrow."@en1
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