WRITTEN QUESTION E-3141/02 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. EU Member States' use of target figures for the admission, reception and deportation of asylum seekers regardless of the reasons why individuals have fled their countries.
Date: 2002-11-04
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, EU migration policy, Netherlands, admission of aliens, human rights, migration policy, political refugee, removal, statistics

C 192 E/96

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

14.8.2003

Under current Community law, citizens of the Union may enter another Member State and stay there
simply on presentation of a valid identity document (passport or identity card). If they intend to stay for
more than three months they are required to apply for a residence permit.

In order for them to obtain a residence permit, Member States may only require production of a valid
identity document (passport or identity card) and proof that they are engaged in an economic activity.
Anyone intending to reside in another Member State who is not engaged in an economic activity must
show that they have sickness insurance covering all risks in that Member State and sufficient resources so
as not to place a burden on its social welfare scheme. There is no provision under Community law for
presentation of a birth certificate in order to obtain a residence permit.

Children under the age of 21 or dependent children have the right to reside with a citizen of the Union
exercising his or her right of free movement. Such citizens have to present a document issued by their
Member State of origin or the Member State from which they are moving, proving that they are the
parent.

The mutual recognition of decisions regarding parental responsibility is the subject of a Commission
proposal for a regulation that is currently under discussion in the Council. Under the proposal, decisions
by a court in a Member State regarding guardianship of a child would be recognised in the other Member
States without any further special formalities.

2.
As regards the documents required by a Member State in order to record its own residents in the
population register, the Commission does not know what practices the Member States follow, since the
rules on entering their own nationals in the population register are a matter for each individual Member
State. As regards citizens of the Union, the Member States observe the rules stated above.

A Convention on the mutual recognition of documents issued by another Member State was agreed
3.
between the States that were then members of the Community on 25 May 1987. However, it never came
into force because it was not ratified by all the Member States.

On the other hand, fourteen of the fifteen Member States of the Union, including Ireland, the Netherlands
and the United Kingdom, are parties to the Convention adopted at the Hague Conference on Private
International Law on 5 October 1961, abolishing the requirement of
legalisation for foreign public
documents. The Convention provides for complex legalisation formalities in the contracting States to be
replaced by the mere addition of the apostille. In the United Kingdom these are issued by Her Majesty’s
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
London S.W. 1.

4.
Nine of the ten States due to join the Union in the near future are parties to the 1961 Hague
Convention. Their accession to the Union should not, therefore, pose any particular problem in terms of
recognition of public documents.

Given the relative simplicity of the formalities required in application of the Convention, there

5.
appears to be no need for particular measures in the immediate future.

(2003/C 192 E/095)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3141/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(4 November 2002)

Subject: EU Member States’ use of target figures for the admission, reception and deportation of asylum

seekers regardless of the reasons why individuals have fled their countries

1.
Is the Commission aware that, in 2001, 22 % of asylum seekers were turned away in the Netherlands
after an initial examination of their cases, that the rejection rate has risen to 64 % in 2002 and that the
minister with responsibility for immigration and integration in the outgoing Netherlands’ Government
takes the view that as many as 80 % of asylum seekers ought to be rejected after an initial screening?

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Do other EU Member States use target figures for the number or percentage of refugees to be

2.
admitted? If so, which are they and what target figures do they use?

3.
Do the attempts undertaken since the Tampere Summit at the end of 2001 to develop a common EU
approach to the admission, reception and deportation of asylum seekers involve target figures, or are
certain criteria used without it being possible to predetermine the number of individuals to which the
arrangements will apply in a given year?

Are there countries now regarded as impossible for refugees to return to, e.g. Somalia, Sierra Leone,

4.
Iraq, Myanmar (Burma) or North Korea, or does every EU Member State apply its own criteria?

Is it at variance with international conventions (on human rights, refugees, protection of the child,
5.
etc.) to consider unlawful the continued residence of asylum seekers who are not regarded as refugees, but
in respect of whom there are objective grounds for establishing that return is impossible, and to withdraw
all facilities and amenities from them (health care, accommodation, income, etc.), even though no attempt
at deportation has been made by the government concerned because,
it too assumes that
return is impossible?

in practice,

6.
Does the Commission consider it in keeping with the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees for
target figures for admission, reception or deportation to be predetermined regardless of the circumstances
forcing individuals to leave their countries of origin for their own survival?

7. What developments does the Commission expect and wish to encourage in order to resolve such
problems in years to come?

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(12 December 2002)

1.
The Commission has not received from the Dutch autorities statistics on asylum decisions which
would give it information of figures related to rejection and recognition rates in the Netherlands. The
Commission is not able to express a point of view on a general affirmation such as the one referred to,
taking into account the fact that asylum is a right which must be recognized on the basis of an individual
assessment and of the situation of the country of origin of asylum seekers.

2.

So far, the Commission has not been informed of such policies.

3.
There are no Community proposals or instruments in place, on the basis of the EC Treaty and the
Tampere conclusions, creating target figures or certain criteria predetermining the number of individuals to
which admission and reception of individuals will apply in a given year. With regard to deportation, and
against the background of the Commission’s Communication on the common asylum policy, introducing
an open co-ordination method (1), it was also considered to improve the rate of effective implementation of
return decisions, including through setting possible specific indicative targets. However, the means would
need to be identified and they could cover a variety of measures such as a more qualitative asylum
procedure (i.e. leading to a better assessment of needs for international protection), better identification
and documentation, improved operational cooperation between Member States and with third countries
on return and readmission, etc.

4.
There is no common Union determination of countries regarded as impossible to return failed
asylum seekers or persons who do not need international protection anymore or illegal residents. At this
stage every Member State applies its own criteria when a government makes such a determination, within
the framework, however, of respect for non-refoulement and international protection obligations. The
Commission has, however, suggested in its recent Communication on a Community return policy on
illegal residents (2)
that an assessment mechanism should be established, which would provide for
assessment of the actual situation in certain countries as to whether removals are feasible or not.

C 192 E/98

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The Commission notes that, according to the caselaw of the European Court of Human Rights, the
5.
fact that the return of a failed asylum seeker is impossible, does not imply an obligation to grant a
residence permit. Furthermore,
in the Commission’s proposal on 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 (3), it has been proposed to leave outside the scope of
the Directive the issue of the rights and benefits of persons whose return is impossible because of reasons
not linked to international protection grounds. Therefore, this is left to Member States discretion, in full
respect of national or international human rights obligations.

In the absence of Community law, the Commission is not competent to assess the compatibility of
6.
national legislation and practices with the provision of the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugee status. At
Union level, no policy proposal has been made which might result in rejection and removal of individuals
regardless of the circumstances which forced them to leave their countries of origin.

7.
The Honourable Member is advised to refer to all the legislative proposals tabled on the basis of
article 63 of the EC Treaty since 1999, the Commission Communications on asylum and return already
mentioned in previous points of the reply and to the last version of the scoreboard on the establishement
of an area of Freedom, Security and Justice.

(1) COM(2001) 710 final.
(2) COM(2002) 564 final.
(3) OJ C 51 E, 26.2.2002.

(2003/C 192 E/096)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3153/02

by Hélène Flautre (Verts/ALE), Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) and Jan Dhaene (Verts/ALE) to the
Commission

(5 November 2002)

Subject: Cross border PCB contamination

Among the results of a large biomonitoring network, the Flemish Regional Government found dangerous
PCB values in the measurement points in Menin during the 2002 measurement campaign. The
biomonitoring project focuses on the most toxic forms of PCB, namely PCB 126.

The measurement points along the Leie, a local
river, show persistent high levels of PCB 126
contamination, with levels up to 45 pg TEQ per square metre and per day. The source of the PCB
contamination is currently not clear. The Flemish Government assumes that the origin lies on French
territory, as Menin lies next to the French border.

Although the Flemish Government informed the French Government in order to find a constructive joint
solution to this problem of trans-frontier pollution, this case shows that Directive 96/59/EG (1) on PCBs
and PCTs has not been properly implemented.

How many civil servants work within the European Commission’s DG Environment on the implemen-
tation of Directive 96/59/EG on PCBs and PCTs? Is the number of experts sufficient to monitor such
implementation?

Do France and Belgium supply the European Commission with sufficient data for a thorough monitoring
of the Directive referred to above? What is the situation in the other Member States?

Does the Commission provide aid in the event of cross-border contamination with PCBs and encourage
Member States to solve jointly problems such as these?

(1) OJ L 243, 24.9.1996, p. 35.