Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-22-Speech-1-112"
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"en.20030922.7.1-112"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, applications for asylum are normally processed by the first country that we can describe as a ‘safe country’ with which an asylum-seeker makes contact. If this principle is indeed always adhered to, and if there are enough of what we term safe third states, then what will be achieved is the distribution of asylum seekers over many countries and, as a result, speedy decisions enabling a person to know whether or not he is actually going to receive the support due to a refugee. That is what we all want.
The present situation is unsatisfactory. The Commissioner has himself presented EU statistics showing that a number of countries are at present having great problems with applications for asylum, whilst others have hardly any. Austria, with almost five applicants for asylum per thousand inhabitants, heads this statistical table, followed by Sweden and Ireland, whilst Portugal, Italy and Spain are at the bottom of the scale with 0.1 applications per thousand inhabitants. Comparison of these statistics reveals that Austria has fifty times as many applications to process as do the other states. So I ask you to understand why this initiative has been taken, and that it is to be welcomed, in that its intention is to speed up decision-making in the asylum process. The fact is that there is no stopping either time or the applications already in the pipeline.
The Austrian initiative is therefore understandable, and it is also necessary. I take a favourable view of it, and the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, too, fully supports the substance of an initiative that will give us, in future, a list of safe third states. It does for these two selfsame reasons, that we will both be speeding up procedures and, at the same time, sharing the burden.
As things now stand, though, it can no longer be fitted in to its ideal slot in the timetable, and so I would welcome it if the attempt could be made – by you, too, Commissioner, I would ask you – to sort out this problem with safe third states, if at all possible, when we deal, as we shortly will, with the procedural directive. We will then not have to do it by means of a specific regulation, which would take up even more time, but would be able to achieve a quick and definite result by the end of this year.
I therefore support the proposal that a better way of handling the whole thing would be for it to be incorporated in the directive, but, apart from that, I am very much in favour – and the Group of the European People’s Party also has an interest in this – of sorting out the problem of safe third states as soon as possible, something that will, in due course, benefit refugees."@en1
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