Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-27-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20050927.4.2-012"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Frattini, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Frattini said, this has been a lengthy process. The first proposal was tabled five years ago; in 2001, Parliament tabled over one hundred amendments in the Watson report; the Council spent two years in negotiations and finally arrived at the general approach in April 2004.
I was very disappointed that the European Parliament was only consulted after the Council had reached a political agreement, which means that, in practice, the Council will now pay no attention to this debate; the Council’s absence from the Chamber sums up perfectly its attitude to this debate. The fact is, as Mr Frattini said, the directive is an important one. This first step towards setting a European asylum system in motion is one we must take as a matter of urgency, and this proposal for a directive is the first legally binding instrument dealing with the asylum process. We must set up common asylum arrangements so that we can manage migratory flows in the most effective and fairest way possible, both for immigrants and for the host societies. This must, moreover, be done without breaching the 1951 Geneva Convention, with particular regard to the principle of
whereby no State will return such people to countries or territories in which their lives or freedoms will be endangered.
That being said, we must take on board the fact that the Member States wish to combat the abuse of asylum systems by economic migrants. I should like to commend the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on his work. I supported many of his amendments, and similarly most of my proposals were incorporated, with regard to humanitarian issues and the protection of asylum seekers’ rights, the need for rapid and effective procedures, detention conditions and the protection of minors and others who may be vulnerable. We disagree, however, on two key points, namely the disappearance of the lists of safe countries, which already existed in some Member States, and the scrapping of the concept of the ‘super-safe’ country.
We therefore ask for separate voting on several amendments. The concept of ‘super-safe’ country certainly applies to European third countries, such as Switzerland, which uphold very high standards of human rights and refugee protection. This concept was a success when it was implemented in Germany; there was a reduction in the number of cases of abuse and in the number of people seeking asylum. Some people believed that this solution contravened the Geneva Convention and that it breached the principle of
This is why we consulted Parliament’s legal service, which has just issued an opinion stating that we were right, and that the safe countries solution is fully compatible with the international obligations to which we are bound.
We also reintroduced an amendment that was not adopted in committee, which proposes that an effective system should be in place whereby the asylum seeker will always have the right to appeal a decision and to await the subsequent decision in the country in which he applied for asylum. If these amendments are adopted, I feel that we will have a report that matches our responsibilities, and the Council would do well to follow our lead. If we keep the amendments contained in the initial version, I fear that the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats will not be able to lend its backing to the report."@en1
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"non-refoulement."1
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