Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-19-Speech-3-584-000"
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"en.20110119.27.3-584-000"2
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".
Thank you, Mr President, for your kind words. Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I would like to thank Parliament for giving me the opportunity to talk about the very important issue of asylum application procedures this evening.
In this context, please allow me to point out one more aspect. A more accurate estimation of the costs of examining the applications submitted would be facilitated if we had such an estimate, which would enable us to conduct an appropriate debate in the Council. I must unfortunately inform you that we in the Council possess no such information. In accordance with the Treaties, the examination of asylum applications falls under the competence of the Member States. The collection and ordering of information relating to the costs of examining asylum applications is not a task the Treaties confer upon the Council. Therefore, as a representative of the Council, I cannot make a commitment in this debate, either speaking for myself or on behalf of the Council, to make available the information in question. However, the Council, of course, remains committed to continuing its work on the proposal for the amendment of the Asylum Procedures Directive, and I would like to thank you for the work you have done so far, and I am confident that the Commission will incorporate the observations you have made so far in the new proposal.
We are counting on the commitment and expertise of the European Parliament. The Hungarian Presidency is confident that, through proper cooperation, we will be able to make progress in this area as well. Please note that it is the goal of the Hungarian Presidency to prepare the common European asylum system that is scheduled to be created in 2012. You, too, have mentioned here several laws in connection with which we definitely wish to make progress. We intend to reach a political agreement in the discussion on the Qualification Directive, as well as in the field of the Dublin Regulation, before the end of the Hungarian Presidency. We will do everything in our power to increase harmony between Parliament and the Council on issues related to the procedure as well.
Parliament addressed five questions to the Council, and since they all deal with the Commission’s proposal for a recast of the Asylum Procedures Directive, I suggest we debate these five questions as one.
In your questions, you referred to the September 2010 Commission report on the application of the Asylum Procedures Directive. This report confirms that considerable differences continue to exist between Member States in terms of asylum procedures and procedural guarantees. The Council and the European Parliament agree that this does not conform to our mutually accepted goal of creating a common European asylum system. In October 2008, the European Council adopted the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, which stressed that the EU and its Member States are committed to addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by migration and asylum in a fair, effective and coherent way.
Among other things, the Pact contains a specific commitment to taking the necessary initiatives for completing the establishment of a common European asylum system. The European Council therefore invited the Commission to submit proposals for the creation of a single asylum procedure containing common norms.
The Stockholm Programme also set out clearly that, in the context of the creation of a common European asylum system, increased harmonisation must remain one of the fundamental policy objectives of the EU. After the European Council had thus given the process political impetus, the Commission submitted multiple proposals in the field of asylum policy, both in 2008 and 2009: Eurodac, as you mentioned earlier in the introductory debate, the proposal for the amendment of the Dublin Regulation or the proposal for the amendment of the Reception Conditions Directive; similarly, the proposal for the establishment of a European Asylum Support Office; and lastly, the proposal for the amendment of the Asylum Procedures Directive and the Qualification Directive.
After these had been received from the Commission, the Council immediately set to work. In this stage, the Council and its preparatory bodies subjected all proposals to intensive and meticulous examination. To this date, the only proposal that Parliament and the Council managed to adopt out of these was the Regulation establishing a European Asylum Support Office, and I am pleased that the Office will soon commence its operation. Last year, Parliament and the Council also agreed on the amendment of the Long-Term Residents Directive, which I believe will give significant momentum to further work on a common European asylum system.
Unfortunately, as you are absolutely right to complain, progress in other areas has proven more difficult. I am certain that you are fully aware of the political sensitivity and technical difficulties of the issue. In this we, the Council, and, I believe, Parliament as well, will all need more time. As you have very accurately pointed out in the questions submitted, the proposal for a recast of the Asylum Procedures Directive contains a particularly high number of problematic issues. Parliament, too, is in the progress of forming its position, which is a good indication of the complexity of the process. It is clear that there remain considerable concerns within the Council with regard to several issues related to the proposal. These especially concern the issue of the potential effects of the proposed measures on the costs of national asylum procedures and the effectiveness of such procedures. You have yourselves mentioned earlier this evening that we must indeed pay special attention to effectiveness and costs. The Member States firmly support the harmonisation objectives with a view to reaching an agreement on certain common fundamental norms and values and uniform protection criteria. As such, the Member States are committed to fully respecting asylum seekers’ right to protection.
However, the Member States wish to make their systems sustainable, especially considering the current difficult economic situation. In order to achieve this, the guarantees provided to asylum seekers and the rules, which must be effective and enforceable and must not result in increased administrative or financial burdens, must be balanced. The Council in general is convinced that if we fail to strike an appropriate balance in this regard, those who do not need protection at all, as Mrs Hohlmeier has already mentioned, will be motivated to abuse the asylum system. Such abuse may harm those asylum seekers who are in real need of protection and, in the long term, could jeopardise the issue of asylum in the European Union. In this context, the Commission’s announcement that it intends to submit an amended proposal has gained extensive support in the Council, as I think the Commissioner will elaborate shortly.
I am certain that this new proposal will give new momentum to the debate in the Council, ensuring that this new proposal will reflect the opinions of the Council and Parliament as well. We will thus be able to make progress in the matter of the proposal on asylum procedures, which is, as you have correctly pointed out in the questions submitted, an important element of the asylum package. To this I must add that, in response to the Commission’s announcement, the Member States have firmly expressed their readiness to lend their assistance to the Commission in drawing up the new proposal."@en1
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