Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-268"
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"en.20040331.12.3-268"2
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".
Mr President, I am aware, as we all are, of the serious problems that currently beset the traditional European system of providing asylum. In a world that is becoming ever smaller and better connected by sophisticated methods of communication, a world in which islands of wealth, peace and well-being are surrounded by poverty, war and destitution, considerable migratory pressures from the less-favoured regions are inevitably brought to bear on wealthier parts of the world. This vast migratory mass, which is mainly driven by economic motives, is jeopardising the asylum system, as many economic migrants, without any other legal means of entering rich countries, try to take the asylum route to gain access to EU territory.
I therefore welcome the Commission’s two communications. We must establish the asylum system called for at the Tampere European Council. New policies, however, must be drawn up to take account of new realities, such as the mixed flows of refugees and economic migrants, substantially greater now than at the time of the Tampere Council. Asylum seekers will, of course, continue to arrive in numbers at the EU’s external borders and it is for them that much of the current Tampere system is designed. It is, accordingly, essential to maintain what is already in the
and to adopt directives still awaiting the Council’s assent, in order to finalise the first part laid down by Tampere on the status of refugees and on asylum procedures, and, in so doing, to move on to the second stage of development.
The Council must, therefore, be urged to adopt at the earliest opportunity the directives to which I have just alluded, which were repeatedly requested at the Laeken, Seville and Thessaloniki Councils. The current system clearly has its shortcomings. Many asylum seekers do not actually need asylum. In fact, most of those in genuine need remain in their regions of origin or in border areas, where they are subjected to persecution, distress, indignity, hunger and death.
I therefore endorse the Commission’s position that we must look into new methods of asylum that are better suited to the reality of the situation. A new policy must be established to process asylum seekers at the point of arrival in the EU, by means of a Community-wide resettlement scheme and by means of protected entry procedures. Asylum and immigration are two distinct, yet intrinsically linked phenomena, which must be addressed together.
I should like to reiterate our call for economic aid to be increased, with no provisos attached, for the regions of origin of migratory flows, with the aim of reducing those flows and of promoting solidarity with the poorest countries and with the people who are most in need. I therefore call on the EU to establish a policy of legal immigration, in which the only means of entering EU territory legally for economic migrants is to ask for asylum, as this is jeopardising the very survival of the system. Europe, Mr President, is the land of asylum and the system must be protected if we are to keep up this humanitarian tradition."@en1
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