Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-24-Speech-2-342"
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"en.20091124.33.2-342"2
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"Mr President, I am going to try to mention the main principles governing our approach to these migration and return problems.
The Commission has sought to obtain greater clarification regarding the circumstances of this Afghan return operation conducted by France and the United Kingdom. However, the Commission does not, at present, have any information to suggest that these three conditions were not met by the persons concerned.
What about these return operations involving several repatriated persons, insofar as each person’s file was assessed individually?
Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibit collective expulsions, but there is neither a legal obstacle nor, moreover, an objection in principle to several return measures that have been taken individually being carried out jointly, each on the basis of a separate decision, for example, using the same flight, nor is there a legal obstacle to these operations being organised jointly by several Member States.
Frontex’s current mandate already provides for operational cooperation in the field of joint return operations. The European Council has asked for Frontex’s operational powers to be strengthened and, in particular, for consideration to be given to the possibility of regularly chartering flights in order to carry out these operations. These joint operations should make return operations more efficient from a logistical point of view and may also derive a number of very desirable benefits with regard to repatriations, which are always distressing.
It should also be noted that, although the Return Directive has not yet been transposed by the majority of the Member States, the Commission encourages them to ensure, at this time, that their return decisions comply with the rules laid down by this directive. This means, in particular, that priority must be given to voluntary returns, that the right to appeal against return decisions must be provided for and that the individual needs of vulnerable persons must be taken into account. This Return Directive is not yet in force. It will be soon, and it will enable some additional guarantees to be given to the persons concerned.
That being said, those are the answers, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that I wished to provide, in line with European law. Of course, Mr Billström also explained that, with regard to all of these problems, we are trying to strike the right balance between the desire to accommodate those who are persecuted for political reasons and who genuinely deserve to be protected, and then, at the same time, the need to recognise also that some applications have no reason to be accepted. So there is a difficult balance there, which the Commission is monitoring closely.
That is what I have to say to Parliament, and I will, of course, listen to the speeches that follow this statement.
European legislation obliges the Member States to ensure that third-country nationals present on their territory can request international protection if they so desire. With regard to the possibility of these nationals, Afghans in this case, being granted one form or another of international protection, the Member States must examine each asylum application by applying the criteria laid down by European legislation to the specific individual circumstances of each asylum seeker. The Member States must decide whether the asylum seeker can claim refugee status and, if he does not meet the criteria required to be considered a refugee, they must verify whether he can receive so-called subsidiary protection.
I am going to run through the principles. Firstly, third-country nationals must not be sent back to their country if they are at risk of serious attacks. European Union legislation and, more specifically, the Asylum Qualification Directive, states that the Member States must respect the principle of non-refoulement, in accordance with their international obligations. Therefore, Member States cannot send back to Afghanistan persons who are refugees within the meaning of the Geneva Convention or who have been granted subsidiary protection. Moreover, the Member States are bound to ensure that no return operations are carried out in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which obliges the Member States to guarantee that a person will not be sent back to his country if he is liable to suffer persecution or serious attack upon his return.
The second point is that one cannot generalise the applications as far as the appropriateness of return operations to Afghanistan is concerned. Afghanistan is one of the main countries of origin of the asylum seekers present in the European Union. I should add that the Union accommodates only a small fraction of the total number of Afghan refugees, most of whom are residing in neighbouring countries, primarily Iran and Pakistan.
One cannot draw general conclusions about whether the forced return of Afghans to their country of origin would infringe Community law, the European Convention on Human Rights or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. It is up to the Member States in which the applications are made to decide on each application in the light of its individual circumstances. When examining the applications, the Member States must look at the relevant specific individual circumstances so as to determine each applicant’s need for protection, if any.
This involves examining the political and humanitarian security conditions and the human rights conditions in Afghanistan. It also involves examining the specific situation of the part of the country that the applicant comes from, as well as the individual circumstances of that person, such as his family situation, his activities in the country of origin or any other specific characteristic that may make him more vulnerable.
One cannot draw general conclusions about Afghan asylum seekers’ need for protection, but statistics show that the recognition rate for this group has increased over the last few months. In the first half of 2009, almost 50% of Afghan asylum seekers received international protection in the European Union, compared with less than 30% in the last quarter of 2008.
I come now to another question: which conditions have to be met before the decision is taken to conduct a return operation? In my recent statement on the operation to return Afghans to Kabul, conducted jointly by the United Kingdom and France, I indicated that the Member States had to take three precautions before returning an individual to a third country such as Afghanistan.
They had to ensure, firstly, that the migrant concerned did not wish to apply for international protection; secondly, if an application for international protection was made, that that application had been the subject of a thorough, individual examination and had been rejected following an appropriate evaluation procedure; and, thirdly, that the life of the migrant returned to his country of origin would not be in danger there."@en1
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