WRITTEN QUESTION E-0137/02

by Jorge Hernández Mollar (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(1 February 2002)

Subject: Package of Community proposals for the common European immigration policy

It should become clear during the first half of the current year that the main foreign policy objective is to harmonise the different laws on asylum and refugees of the fifteen Member States.

This is a complex task which should provide the foundation for the launch of the future common European immigration policy, which the Member States agreed on at the Laeken (Belgium) summit in December.

Will the Commission say what initiatives it plans to achieve the harmonisation of the different laws of the Fifteen on asylum and refugees as a basis for a European frontiers policy which will pave the way for a future common policy to control immigration?

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(21 February 2002)

The Commission welcomes the conclusions adopted by the Laeken European Council (14-15 December 2001) and in particular, its endorsement of the political guidelines and objectives set out at Tampere. It also supports the fresh impetus and drive in the areas of immigration and asylum in order to catch up on the targets set in its scoreboard for the review of progress made towards the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice in the European Union. The Commission places high hopes in the Spanish Presidency to infuse the process with a new dynamism and achieve further results during the first half of 2002.

The Commission would recall that the main proposals necessary for the implementation of Article 63 of the EC Treaty and the Tampere conclusions had already been presented within the deadlines set. First and foremost therefore, it is for the Council, as the Heads of State or Government did in fact request, to speed up work. Here, at the wishes of the European Council, special attention should be paid to the proposals for directives on minimum standards governing the reception of asylum seekers and the conditions to be met by third country nationals and stateless persons in order to enable them to claim refugee status or the status of persons who, for other reasons, require international protection linked to that status. Parliament's initiative to increase the appropriations allocated to the European Refugee Fund by 10 million will certainly help to meet the European Council's request for account to be taken of the need to provide aid for asylum seekers.

Nonetheless, the Commission will continue to encourage the completion of this work. It is pleased that, on the basis of its November 2001 communication on a common policy on illegal immigrants, the Council speedily adopted an action plan in this area. As promised, the Commission intends to take action as soon as possible and publish the appropriate measures in a Green Paper on which wide-ranging consultations will take place and in a forthcoming communication it will propose a common strategy on external border controls.

Moreover, as it has been asked, the Commission intends, before the end of April 2002, to present amended proposals relating to asylum procedures and family reunification in the hope of making it easier to compromise on particularly sensitive issues. It attaches great importance to the speedy conclusion of the work on its proposal for a regulation to replace the Dublin Convention, a recurring priority of the European Council. The Commission will also take steps to ensure that the European system based on the comparison of fingerprints of asylum seekers (Eurodac) will enter into operation as soon as possible in the hope that the Member States will adopt all the necessary provisions without delay.

Moreover, the Commission approves the willingness expressed at Laeken to integrate policy on migratory flows more fully into the Union's external policy. It is in favour of any endeavour to reshape the work of the High Level Group on Immigration and Asylum set up by the Council in 1999 whose mandate would certainly benefit from being reviewed and up-dated. Before the end of the year, the Commission intends to present to the Council and Parliament a proposal for a programme involving cooperation with third countries based on the experience gained from the implementation of the new budgetary instrument established at Parliament's initiative. The Commission is also concerned that a genuine common policy on readmission be introduced. It will step up its efforts to negotiate the agreements which it has already been authorised to conclude and it will draft the necessary proposals to broaden this approach in a consistent manner.

Following its communications advocating the introduction of methods to ensure open cooperation in the areas of immigration and asylum, the Commission will shortly take the initiative to establish a European system for the exchange of information on asylum, migration and countries of origin requested by the European Council. This will include a proposal for a new statistical action plan called for by the Council in May 2001 as well as the gradual development of a virtual migration monitoring centre and the resumption of the activities of the Centre for information and exchange on asylum (CIREA) which the Permanent Representatives Committee recently decided to abolish. In addition, the Commission will look into the possibility of supplementing the instruments already adopted as part of the fight against discrimination and racism with specific new measures on the integration of migrants