WRITTEN QUESTION E-2258/03 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Council. Keeping new refugees away from EU territory by building reception camps in the future Member States or further afield.
Date: 2003-07-08
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: admission of aliens, external border of the EU, migration policy, political asylum, refugee, right of asylum, social facilities

C 84 E/16

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

3.4.2004

Reply

(8 March 2004)

In February 2003, the Council and the European Parliament had before them a proposal for a Directive on
measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights (2003/0024(COD)).

This proposal is currently being examined in detail within the Council bodies pending the opinion of the
European Parliament at first reading (scheduled for November 2003). The Council can ensure you that it
will continue to accord this proposal the priority it deserves.

In this context, it should be noted that on 22 July 2003 the Council also adopted a Regulation concerning
customs action against goods suspected of infringing certain intellectual property rights and the measures
to be taken against goods found to have infringed such rights (1). The Regulation forms part of the more
general framework of cooperation and mutual assistance between customs administrations at Community
level.

(1) OJ L 196, 2.8.2003, p. 7.

(2004/C 84 E/0018)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2210/03

by Claude Moraes (PSE) to the Council

(2 July 2003)

Subject: Progress on asylum in Thessaloniki

Will the Council please give its view on the progress made on the issue of asylum at the Thessaloniki
Summit, particularly with regard to UK proposals to create ‘zones of protection’ to process asylum
applications on or close to the borders of refugee producing countries?

(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?

Do similar agreements exist, concluded by the EU or its individual Member States,

3.
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 South-
Western 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?

3.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 84 E/17

How will it be possible to prevent traffickers in human beings from continuing to enrich themselves

5.
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.

(2004/C 84 E/0020)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-2302/03

by Miguel Martínez Martínez (PSE) to the Council

(8 July 2003)

Subject: Murder of the young Spanish voluntary worker Ana Isabel Sánchez Torralba in Equatorial Guinea

Voluntary workers in Equatorial Guinea have now confirmed the sad news of the death of a young
Spanish woman in that country, who was killed in dramatic circumstances by Equatorial Guinean soldiers.
Ana Isabel Sánchez Torralba was 22 years old, came from Ocaña in Castilla-La Mancha and had been in
Africa for only a few days generously contributing to the solidarity-based work of
the Escolapian
Missionaries. She was travelling towards the town of Aconibe in a civilian bus with other citizens and a
couple of fellow missionaries when the vehicle was inexplicably shot at by members of the country’s
armed forces on passing a checkpoint, with fatal consequences.

This serious incident leads me, as a citizen of the same country as the young murder victim who shares
the grief and indignation of her family and friends, to put the following questions to the Council for
written answer:

(cid:1) Is the Council aware of the above facts, or will it seek the relevant information?

(cid:1) Now that the murder of this exemplary young European has been confirmed, will the Council respond
those

the Equatorial Guinean authorities

take appropriate action against

by demanding that
responsible?