Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-04-Speech-2-119"
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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council of Ministers has been deeply shocked by the events at Dover and the deaths of 58 Chinese nationals in tragic circumstances.
Given the reality of the trade in human beings and of the traffic in illegal immigration, the French Presidency wishes to promote European cooperation, based on the conclusions of the Tampere Summit and on the following principles: co-development, the integration of foreigners, the fight against illegal immigration and the common policy on Asia.
The first point involves taking account of the situation in the countries of origin. How can we deter people from wanting to leave their country for Europe under any circumstances and thereby often putting their fate in the hands of slavery networks? The Council must base its action on the guidelines adopted at Tampere and I quote: “The European Union needs a comprehensive approach to migration addressing political, human rights and development issues in countries and regions of origin and transit”.
Migratory movements are actually due to numerous factors: demographic differences between the North and the South, the continual increase in inequalities of income and wealth between the richest and poorest countries, the instability of certain political situations and the often false image that immigrants have of what a future in Europe might hold for them. Illegal immigration and the trafficking in human beings are not inevitable, however. They can be combated by means of a firm political will. In a world that is undergoing profound upheaval, the task of controlling long-term flows must shift from politics to co-development and the stabilisation of the countries in which immigration originates. The whole purpose of co-development is to link up these countries’ policies for development in order to exercise control over migration flows.
France will strive to provide new impetus to this progress towards co-development, making use of its experience in this area. An agreement has already been signed with Senegal and others are being negotiated with Mali and Morocco.
There are two questions to be answered: how can we encourage the development of local projects, specifically through aid for training and the resettlement of foreigners who wish to return to their mother country in order to contribute to its economic development, and how can this local development contribute to controlling migration flows by stabilising the population? The study being carried out on these two issues will benefit the future work of the High Level Working Group on Asylum and Immigration, which is today striving to implement the specific measures established in five action plans, covering Morocco and Sri Lanka. Implementing this priority led to a seminar being held on 6 and 7 July in Paris, in which experts and several Ministers will take part. The purpose of this seminar is to draw up the text which will guide the work of the European Union, on the basis of a few pilot experiments carried out with countries that have cooperated in this area and which have stable state structures. I am thinking here of Morocco.
The European Union’s second main priority, which was established at Tampere, is to integrate foreign nationals who are legally entitled to be in our countries. This is an important point with regard to the fight against trafficking in human beings, which feeds off the fact that some foreign nationals in the European Union are on the margins of, or excluded from, society. This integration requires a firm policy to provide equal economic and social rights and an equally staunch fight against any form of discrimination, particularly in the field of employment.
The French Presidency is planning to hold a seminar in October on this theme, with a view to presenting the Council with a draft text on the harmonisation of permits for extended periods of residence, which is an essential mechanism for integration. The opportunity to adopt the nationality of Member States is also a fundamental aspect of integrating foreign nationals in Europe, but we realise that, in this area, each country applies its own laws.
The third point emphasised at Tampere is the fight against the criminal networks that I mentioned just now, and against the traffic in human beings. This aspect is clearly one of the French Presidency’s central concerns. The Tampere Council specifically stressed this priority, and I quote: “The European Council stresses the need for more efficient management of migration flows at all their stages. It calls for the development, in close co-operation with countries of origin and transit, of information campaigns on the actual possibilities for legal immigration, and for the prevention of all forms of trafficking in human beings. The European Council calls for closer co-operation and mutual technical assistance between the Member States’ border control services”.
Following the events in Dover, the Feira European Council called once again for rapid action by the European Union. This Council, and I quote, “condemned the criminal acts of those who profit from such traffic in human beings and committed the European Union to intensified cooperation to defeat such cross-border crime, which has caused so many other deaths across Europe”. The Council has urged the forthcoming French Presidency and the Commission to ensure that the Tampere conclusions on this subject are implemented as a matter of urgency.
The French Presidency has already proposed four initiatives to the Council. The first of these is a draft directive establishing sanctions against transporters who give lifts to illegal passengers. This draft text would extend the measures provided for in the convention applying the Schengen agreement and the purpose of the text is to provide the Union with a common mechanism for sanctions. This restates the obligation on transporters to do everything they can to ensure that the passengers they are carrying have travel documents and, if appropriate, the necessary visas. This mechanism also restates the transporter’s obligation to send back or to accept responsibility for sending back foreign nationals who have not been allowed to enter for the reasons I have just mentioned. This draft directive also provides for sanctions against those who have transported passengers who do not have the necessary documents or visas. The proposed text provides for a minimum fine of EUR 2000.
These events demonstrate the increasing pressure that migration is putting on Western Europe, which we have been aware of for some time. In order to respond to a situation which is of great concern to our continent, European solidarity must be considerably strengthened. Firstly, the point must be made quite forcefully that the existence of organised criminal networks, as well as the scale of professional smuggling, which is contemptible but lucrative, plays a central role in illegal immigration, both in increasing the flows themselves and in the methods for smuggling people, of which the tragedy at Dover is an extreme example.
A second draft framework decision seeks to increase the criminal punishment for aiding the illegal entry or stay in a country. On this issue too, by extending the measures of the convention applying the Schengen agreement, covering the obligation of States that are signatories to the convention to provide for sanctions against anyone aiding an illegal entry or stay, France has presented a draft framework decision whose purpose is to encourage the harmonisation of national legislations with regard to defining offences. This text will therefore play an important role in more effectively curbing the traffic in human beings.
The French Presidency’s third initiative was to also submit a draft directive on cooperation in the matter of expulsions. The purpose of this draft directive is to facilitate the implementation of an expulsion measure passed by one Member State against a foreign national who is not legally entitled to stay, when this measure is taken by any other State, the foreign national having been arrested in their territory.
Fourthly and finally, an improvement in European cooperation in the area of controlling migration flows and increasing control over external borders is one of the Council of Ministers’ priorities. In its capacity as holder of the Presidency, France has submitted new proposals in this field, specifically an action plan, which the European institutions are about to discuss. First of all, it is crucial to increase police cooperation in the exchange of information on illegal migration flows and on criminal networks. The centralisation, cross-checking, analysis and use of this data must be carried out by the existing Working Group. As the Feira conclusions emphasise, it is particularly important to develop Europol’s role in curbing the traffic in human beings. The French Presidency therefore intends immediately to ask Europol to submit a report on the action it has undertaken in this area.
The other aim in the field of police cooperation is to strengthen the rapid warning mechanism, which must be made sufficiently effective to enable Member States to be informed about and to react in good time to events connected with illegal immigration. This mechanism specifically involves the designation of points of contact between Member countries and entrusts the Council Presidency with the task of organising the necessary agreement for implementing the appropriate measures.
Increasing this coordination also involves establishing a network of liaison officers from the Member States in the countries where the immigration originates, in order to improve understanding of particular situations, to control immigration at source, particularly through the checking of travel documents at the point of embarkation at airports.
This whole range of projects, designed to strengthen the fight against illegal immigration, will be the subject of a seminar on criminal networks, which is to be held in Paris on 20 and 21 July, in other words, in a few days’ time. This seminar will bring together high level representatives of the Member States, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada and Mexico. Several Ministers from the Member States as well as the heads of various immigration services and border police from Member States will be taking part in this symposium.
I should also like to emphasise the fact that one of the fundamental points resulting from Tampere is the principle of harmonising the right of asylum between Member States. This is another important tool in the fight against illegal immigration. We have seen requests for asylum increase dramatically in most countries in the European Union. This increase reflects the higher number of illegal entries, since 80% to 90% of requests for asylum are rejected by the countries to which they are made.
The right to asylum is frequently used by criminal networks as a legal tool to make the entry into a country and the stay there easier for illegal immigrants. The main difficulty in our task is therefore the need to reconcile this fundamental right to asylum, which is recognised in international conventions, with the fight against fraud. With regard to this matter too, I shall refer to the Tampere Summit, where the European Council restated the importance attached by the Union and its Member States to fully respecting the right to asylum. The Summit conclusions state that “this system should include, in the short term, a clear and workable determination of the State responsible for the examination of an asylum application, common standards for a fair and efficient asylum procedure, and common minimum conditions of reception of asylum seekers”.
It is therefore crucial first of all that we make progress with projects that seek to improve the functioning of the Dublin Convention, with regard to determining the State responsible for the examination of an asylum application. France is paying close attention to the work currently being undertaken by the Commission. We will have taken an important step forward if we are able to ensure that the State that is the original point of entry for a foreign national into the European Union has sole responsibility for examining that person’s application for asylum. The Eurodac system, which will soon be up and running, enabling the fingerprints of asylum seekers to be stored centrally, will certainly contribute to the fight against fraud involving multiple applications.
We must also rapidly attain the objective of a fair and efficient asylum system in Europe. There is therefore an urgent need to harmonise the conditions of reception for asylum seekers, in order to limit internal flows into European Union territory and thereby achieve a more balanced division between Member States. This is why the French Presidency has submitted a draft set of guidelines, which is designed to make the Commission’s work and the drawing up of a future directive easier.
We know that most illegal immigration arrives in Western Europe, as a result of smugglers, particularly in the case of those people coming from far-off destinations such as China. This point must be emphasised in order to respond to those who say that it is immigration control that creates illegal immigrants. The increase in non-lawful immigration, on the contrary, leads to greater activity by gangs providing illegal entry to our countries. It is quite clear that this activity benefits from legislative or operational weaknesses in the destination countries and from all factors that allow the illegal immigrants to enter and remain in these countries in violation of their laws.
We hope to reach our first conclusions at next December’s Council, so that we can contribute to the preparation of the Commission’s draft directive, which is planned for the beginning of 2001. The Council is therefore determined to use all necessary means to fight against the traffic in human beings and to do so in accordance with the Tampere and Feira conclusions. The Council takes the view that the issue of the ways and means of illegal entry is no longer a question solely related to the problem of immigration. This issue also involves the fight against organised crime. This is the approach that must inform our work, and the French Presidency hopes to mobilise all necessary means – national, Community and intergovernmental – to succeed.
That is not all, however. Behind the smugglers, we are beginning to see mafias operating to an ever-greater extent. Police Chiefs have identified a Russian mafia, exploiting Sri Lankans and Chinese, and a Turkish mafia is taking charge of Kurds, Afghans and Iranians. We also know that illegal immigrants from the Balkans are under the protection of Albanian mafias. The fact that many of these illegal immigrants are concentrated in Calais, a bridging post for the United Kingdom – more than 10 000 have been arrested since August 1999 – shows the extremely active nature of the smugglers: 400 of them have been arrested since August 1999.
We should also no longer hide the fact that illegal immigration has become the subject of a veritable traffic in human beings, which consequently leads to crime, even to major organised crime. Since it is easier, more lucrative and less risky than other forms of trafficking, such as drug trafficking, for example, trafficking in illegal immigrants is becoming a major issue in police and judicial action and cooperation. The trade in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation is one of the most odious aspects of this trafficking. When there is this level of organisation, it is no longer simply a question of combating illegal immigration, but of properly fighting crime itself. The real culprits are those who organise illegal immigration, in whose hands those people hoping to emigrate are merely the playthings of a script that could easily become a tragedy.
We must therefore combat these smugglers first of all. Non-lawful immigration or the trafficking in human beings is a new form of slavery that cannot be tolerated in our democratic societies. We know, for example, that in order to use the services of a smuggler, it costs a Chinese national between EUR 10 000 and EUR 20 000 and years of illegal work to repay this debt. They generally live under constant threat, without rights or any protection, often in horrific conditions.
The rhetoric of calling for a massive opening up of immigration for work or for the automatic right of residence for all immigrants only feeds this dream of Europe and helps to push hundreds of thousands of people every year into the clutches of criminal networks working in illegal immigration.
The European Union must therefore not make the mistake of targeting the wrong people. It does not intend to do so and will concentrate on those who organise this traffic in human beings, which is one of the most cowardly and odious forms of trafficking.
The Council is determined to implement all necessary measures to combat this odious trafficking. European cooperation must be based on the means available to the Member States, and the States have clearly decided to provide themselves with the means to fight this scourge effectively. Since 1995, France has had a central office for the prevention of illegal immigration and employment, which has greatly enhanced its action in breaking up criminal networks in the last two years. This body has succeeded in breaking up and halting the activities of around fifteen criminal networks per year."@en1
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