EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 84/16

(2004/C 84 E/0019)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2258/03

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(8 July 2003)

Subject: Keeping new refugees away from EU territory by building reception camps in the future Member States or further afield

1. Can the Council confirm that, even before the decision was taken on 20 June 2003 at Porto Carras (near Thessaloniki) to permit some EU Member States by way of an experiment to accommodate asylum seekers outside EU territory, work had already begun to connect electricity, water mains ssand drainage to 13 barracks at the former army base in the village of Trstenik, Croatia?

2. Does the Council consider that the housing in Trstenik will remain confined to the temporary accommodation of 800 asylum seekers wishing to settle in the UK, and will the people taken there exclusively comprise people from Balkan countries applying for asylum at UK ports or airports?

3. Do similar agreements exist, concluded by the EU or its individual Member States, for the construction of refugee camps in Russia, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Albania, and are there plans for camps further away from EU territory in a ring around the refugees' countries of origin in Southwestern and North-Eastern Africa?

4. Is the intention to keep the refugees permanently outside EU territory? Does that mean that these reception camps will be moved, together with their occupants, when Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia join the EU?

5. How will it be possible to prevent traffickers in human beings from continuing to enrich themselves by smuggling these people from these camps into the EU by dangerous means?

6. How is this state of affairs to be reconciled with the European Convention on the protection of Human Rights (Council of Europe) and the 1951 Refugee Convention? Does the Council consider that these conventions will have to be amended so that, on the basis of agreements with states which are not (yet) EU Member States, asylum seekers can be denied the right to await the outcome of their asylum applications on EU territory?

Joint answer to Written Questions E-2210/03 and E-2258/03

(8 March 2004)

The European Council, meeting in Thessaloniki on 19 and 20 June 2003, invited the Commission to explore all parameters in order to ensure more orderly and managed entry into the EU for persons in need of international protection, and to examine ways and means to enhance the protection capacity of regions of origin with a view to presenting to the Council, before June 2004, a comprehensive report suggesting measures to be taken, including legal implications.

As part of this process, the European Council noted that a number of Member States were planning to explore ways of providing better protection for the refugees in their region of origin, in conjunction with the UNHCR. It considered that this work should be carried out in full partnership with the countries concerned on the basis of recommendations from the UNHCR.

No agreement whatsoever has been concluded between the Council and acceding countries or third countries on this matter. As regards measures which may have been taken by individual Member States, the Council invites the Honourable Members to address themselves directly to those Member States.

In the meantime, the Council is focusing its work on the proposals for a Council Directive on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third-country nationals and stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection and for a Council Directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status. It is recalled that the European Council also stressed that it was vital to ensure the adoption of both proposals before the end of 2003.