Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-04-Speech-1-045-000"
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"en.20110404.14.1-045-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the first stage will be reached this week in the recasting of the Asylum Procedures Directive. Indeed, our Parliament will be required on Wednesday to give its verdict on the revised Commission proposal on common procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
I therefore support the Commission’s approach, which aims to improve the procedures at first instance – ‘front-loading’ – because high quality decisions at first instance will be particularly beneficial for victims of persecution insofar as they will enable the competent authorities to deliver robust decisions, improve the defendability of negative decisions, and thus reduce the risk of them being overturned by appeal bodies, better identify cases of unfounded or abusive applications, and reduce reception and procedural costs in the Member States, while supporting their efforts to expel asylum seekers whose applications have genuinely been rejected.
Lastly, I should like to say a few words about some key points that will enable us – I hope – to take this report further now. Firstly, the right to free legal assistance at first instance is, to my mind, an essential guarantee when it comes to improving the quality of decisions. Secondly, better account will be taken of vulnerable applicants, a group of people that the current directive completely overlooks.
The third challenge is to establish more ambitious time limits for appeals so as to strengthen the right to effective remedy, and to provide greater guarantees in the case of accelerated procedures, in particular, a reduction in their grounds or the setting of reasonable time limits. As for the safe countries concept, we call for a common European list to be adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, as the Court of Justice recommended in 2008.
To conclude, the final adoption of this report should be a strong signal from Parliament to the Council and the Commission. As I see it, Parliament’s red lines have been established and the bar has been set: we are aiming at the upwards harmonisation of protection standards, and we should be delighted at that, ladies and gentlemen.
This European Parliament opinion is essential to the dialogue that will be pursued with the Council in the coming months on a text that I believe is the cornerstone of the asylum package and on which – I am sorry to say – discussions are at a standstill in the Council. It will serve as a basis for a new version of this directive, which I hope will enable us to stick to our 2012 deadline for implementing common asylum rules.
The vote on this report coincides with the publication, last week, of a UNHCR study on the 44 industrialised nations. The study shows that, contrary to popular belief, the number of asylum seekers in rich countries has decreased overall by 40% in 10 years and by 5% in one year. Armed with such data, we need to study the root causes of this decline. Is it because of fewer push factors, or tighter migration control in some countries?
What that report also shows is that developing countries today assume the lion’s share of the responsibility for asylum, even though they do not necessarily have all the resources to do so. Europe must therefore do its fair share, and for that it must adopt clear rules. This brings me back to this text on asylum procedures and to the main challenges. Often described as a catalogue of the worst national practices, the current directive has two major disadvantages: it fails to sufficiently protect the rights of asylum seekers, and it creates major disparities in treatment within the Member States.
Indeed, major discrepancies still remain between the different asylum systems in Europe. To take just two examples, in 2009, the percentage of positive decisions at first instance in the Member States ranged from 65% to less than 1%. The time limit for lodging an appeal against a negative decision at first instance ranged from two to 30 days. There are a number of disparities, then, between the Member States, whether in terms of the grounds for accelerated procedures, or in terms of access to personal interviews or to effective remedy.
The fact is, such disparities are incompatible with a common asylum system which ought to offer equivalent protection throughout the EU. They also run counter to one of the cornerstones of the Dublin II Regulation, which is based on the presumption that the Member States’ asylum systems are comparable. Legislative harmonisation is therefore essential to ensuring that we have fair, accessible, safe and effective procedures at long last.
Since I believe they are incorrect, I should like to respond once again to some assertions made by the detractors of this text, for whom this directive ultimately amounts to little more than an increase in costs and abuses.
Admittedly, these procedural changes may create costs in the short term. However, a little clear-sightedness would help us see that it is, in fact, the misuse of inadequate procedures in quality and security terms that is today costing the Member States dear. I would mention two indicators to support my argument: the very large number of appeals and the length of the procedures thus generated.
I should also like us to move away from the black and white idea of asylum, where it is said to lead only to abuse. In a context in which immigration issues are being exploited, to defend asylum as a fundamental right is an obligation. Moreover, if the most reticent MEPs take anything away from the situation in the Arab world, it will be that the European Union has a responsibility to grant fair protection to victims of persecution."@en1
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