WRITTEN QUESTION E-2351/02

by Juan Naranjo Escobar (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(31 July 2002)

Subject: European immigration policy

On Wednesday, 10 July, the French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, unveiled a back to the border scheme for illegal immigrants, grouped by country.

Sarkozy argued that his country needs to rectify its strategy on immigration, claiming that there is something wrong when requests for asylum have fallen in seven EU countries while continuing to rise in France.

France has adopted this position just when the EU is drawing up a proposal to harmonise the repatriation of illegal immigrants. What obstacles, if any, might this European legislation place in the way of the newly announced French scheme? What does the EU harmonisation currently in hand actually consist of?

Given this type of situation, which may arise in other Member States, it is clearly necessary to have readmission agreements with the immigrants' countries of origin, so as to guarantee that in situations such as the one referred to above, those countries will actually acknowledge their own nationals. Independent of

whatever bilateral agreements the Member States may have been able to negotiate with the immigrants' countries of origin, can the Commission tell me how far it has got in the negotiations it has been mandated to begin on readmission agreements? What are the countries for which the Commission intends to seek a new negotiating mandate from the Council?

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(23 September 2002)

The Commission has no information concerning a French back to the border scheme for illegal immigrants, grouped by country. It is therefore not in a position to comment on any such scheme's compatibility with existing Union laws and policies.

There is as yet no overall Union policy on return and readmission, although the Commission has published a Green Paper(1) on a Community Return Policy and has advanced its work on re-admission agreements as described below. This is due to the fact that it is only since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam on 1 May 1999 that the Community has had powers in this field (Article 63(3)(b) of the EC Treaty).

When debating the effects of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam on the Union's future policy in this field, at its meeting on 27 and 28 May 1999, the Council concluded that Community readmission agreements would constitute a valuable instrument for an active return policy and that, in suitable cases, the Council would authorise the Commission to conduct negotiations with third countries on such agreements. These conclusions were broadly backed by the Tampere European Council of 15/16 October 1999 when the Union's Heads of State or Government explicitly confirmed that the Amsterdam Treaty conferred powers on the Community in the field of readmission. The European Council invited the Council to conclude readmission agreements with relevant third-countries or groups of third-countries. The Commission has repeatedly stated that it shares this approach, most recently in its Communication on a Common Policy on Illegal Immigration(2) and in the Green Paper on a Community Return Policy mentioned above.

The Commission has so far been authorised by the Council to negotiate Community readmission agreements with Russia, Morocco, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (in September 2000), the Chinese Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao (in April 2001) and Ukraine (in June 2002) in accordance with Article 300 of the EC Treaty. So far, the Commission has been able to complete negotiations successfully with Hong Kong and Sri Lanka with whom final texts were initialled on 22 November 2001 and 30 May 2002 respectively. The Council should soon authorise the Commission to sign the Hong Kong Agreement which is now likely to become the first ever readmission agreement to be concluded by the Community.

Following the Laeken European Council of 14/15 December 2001, which emphazised the need for the conclusion of Community readmission agreements with further relevant third-countries, at its meeting on 25 April 2002, the Council, identified Albania, Algeria, China and Turkey as new priorities. This was confirmed by the Seville European Council of 21/22 June 2002 which, in paragraph 30 of its conclusions, explicitly called for the speeding up of the conclusion of readmission agreements currently being negotiated and the approval of new negotiating mandates for further third countries. As a consequence, the Commission will shortly submit to the Council draft mandates for negotiations with Albania, Algeria, China and Turkey.

(1) COM(2002) 175 final.

(2) COM(2001) 672 final.