FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Analysis: Europe's asylum trends

The number of asylum seekers in the world's 38 industrialised countries in 2004 fell to its lowest level in 16 years - but for several of the EU's new member-states the figures rose sharply.
The BBC's Central and South-East Europe analyst, Gabriel Partos, examines what lies behind the European trends reported by the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR.


The world's three largest traditional destinations for asylum seekers - the United States, Germany and Britain - have all registered huge drops in the number of people applying for asylum in recent years.
Last year they were overtaken by France as the leading receiving country.

In general, the scale of the asylum problem across western Europe is now down to a level last seen in the mid- to late 1980s.

The continuing drop in numbers in recent years has been due to a combination of factors: a stricter asylum policy in the receiving countries and greater political stability - or at least a widely-shared hope for a better future - in some of the major source regions, including Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans.

But Serbia and Montenegro - primarily through Kosovo - remains the second largest source of asylum seekers after the Russian Federation.


In spite of this overall downward trend - 19% across the EU as a whole - the EU's 10 new members actually registered a small increase of 4% in asylum seekers last year.

Cyprus, Malta, Poland and Slovakia - plus Finland from among the older EU members - actually saw a marked increase in arrivals last year.

The UNHCR's spokesman for Europe, Rupert Colville, identified two reasons for this contrasting trend.

"Some countries are getting a large number of Chechens - people from the Russian Federation but the majority of them Chechens.

"In the case of Cyprus, which has gone up a lot, it's a bit of a local anomaly, really, in that they've had a large number of Bangladeshi and Pakistani students who were in Cyprus, who have then been claiming asylum. It's a sort of disconnect between the migration system and the asylum system."

'Magnet' countries

Behind these specific reasons, there is also a broader trend.

In many cases the new members - whether on the eastern fringes of central Europe or in the south and eastern Mediterranean - now form the new borders of the EU.

ASYLUM APPLICATIONS 2000-04
2000: 605,440
2001: 655,130
2003:508,070
2004: 396,380
Change 03-04: -26%
(Requests to 50 industrialised nations)
Source: UNHCR

Apart from being the first - and often the easiest - point of arrival in the EU, these countries are also becoming increasingly prosperous and, therefore, more of a magnet for would-be asylum claimants.

But claiming asylum in itself does not by any means guarantee success.

Rupert Colville highlighted the situation in Slovakia, which "is definitely very overburdened with asylum seekers".

"It has a very young asylum system, very fragile, let's say. They had 11,300 in 2004, which is a lot for the Slovak Republic.

"However, hardly anyone is getting recognised [as refugees] in the Slovak Republic, even though they have a high number of Chechens coming there, whereas in neighbouring countries, like Austria for example, you find a much, much higher recognition rate."

Different patterns

Even among the new central European members of the EU there are diverging trends.


The Czech Republic and Hungary have been following the downward shift in western Europe, with a massive 52% reduction in last year's asylum claimants in the Czech Republic and a one-third drop in Hungary.
Similarly, Bulgaria and Romania - which will form the next wave of EU enlargement - have seen a sizeable decrease.

In general, though, the contradictory developments across the EU are a source of concern to the UNHCR.

"What is a glaring omission, I think, is any kind of burden-sharing mechanism," says Mr Colville.

"That's worrying us, particularly for these new member-states. Obviously, as the new border states, they are coming under some pressure. And there's really no system for the EU to help out countries which are getting their undue share of the numbers."

The limited extent of existing burden-sharing mechanisms is less of a problem at a time when the numbers of asylum seekers are down to a level last seen nearly 20 years ago.

Crisis plans

The danger is that if there is another major conflict that would prompt a large wave of asylum seekers, the EU's new members with their limited resources could easily be overwhelmed.

Friso Roscam Abbing, a spokesman for the European Commission, says however that the EU is not turning away from the problem.

"We are obviously aware of the increase in the number of asylum seekers in a number of EU member states, and precisely in those who have external borders," he says.

The "Hague programme" adopted last November by European leaders said there should be assistance for member states which merely due to their geographical location faced an influx of asylum seekers or immigrants, Mr Abbing noted.

"This is where the whole idea of solidarity - very solemnly enshrined also in the European constitutional treaty, in the chapter on immigration and asylum - and burden-sharing kicks in."

In 2000, after lengthy negotiations, EU leaders allocated 216m euros (£149m; $286m) to a European Refugee Fund (ERF), to run until the end of 2004.

Last year, they agreed to extend the fund for the period 2005-2010.

Some 10m euros of the fund can be used in an emergency, to house, feed and offer medical assistance to a sudden large influx of refugees anywhere in the EU.

EU leaders have also pledged to develop a common asylum system by the end of the decade, but that may be harder to achieve than handing out money.

French vote on EU threatens to tear apart Socialist party

By John Lichfield in Paris
14 March 2005



The main French opposition party, the Socialists, risks being torn apart by France's referendum on the EU constitution. "The mood within the party is terrible, dramatic, the worst I've known in 20 years as a Socialist," a former minister and leading member of the party told The Independent.

François Hollande, the party's pro-treaty leader and likely presidential candidate in 2007, was booed and pelted with snowballs by anti-EU treaty Socialists and members of more extreme left-wing parties at a rally in France last week.

The former secretary general of the party, Henri Emmanuelli, told an interviewer on Friday that a Socialist vote for the constitution would be a repeat of earlier "mistakes" such as Socialist politicians' support for the collaborationist Marshal Pétain in 1940. His words produced furious denunciations from M. Hollande and other Socialist leaders and M. Emmanuelli had to apologise.

The open warfare has erupted within the Parti Socialiste despite a resounding vote by members in support of the new EU constitution in an internal referendum in December. The refusal of the party's left wing, and several senior leaders, to abide by this has wrong-footed M. Hollande.

More immediately, it threatens the bi-partisan centre-right and centre-left campaign for a "yes" vote in France's nationwide referendum on the EU treaty on 29 May. Although opinion polls still show a 60 to 40 per cent split in favour of the treaty, pro-European politicians of right and left fear high unemployment, a widespread sense of political and economic malaise, the split in the Socialists and the extreme unpopularity of the centre-right government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin could yet sink the "yes" vote.

The treaty streamlines EU decision-making, creates a permanent EU president and foreign minster and incorporates and extends the free market principles adopted by earlier EU treaties. If rejected by a large, founding member in the geographical heart of Europe, the treaty would be brain-dead, long before it goes to a UK vote.

The Eurosceptic right in Britain attacks the constitution as a blueprint for a socialistic super-state. Left-wing French Socialists, and more extreme French left-wing parties, say the new EU treaty amounts to an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy to dismantle the continental "model" of strong social guarantees and public services.

Many moderate Socialists also dislike the idea of voting again with President Jacques Chirac and M. Raffarin, which they had to do in 2002 after the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, lost the second round of the presidential election to the far-right xenophobe, Jean-Marie Le Pen. There is also opposition to the European constitution on the French right and centre-right, based partly on the "sovereignty" arguments heard in Britain, and partly on fear of future Turkish membership of the EU.

EU to delay Croatia entry talks over missing war crimes suspect

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Britain and the Netherlands said Wednesday the European Union would delay the start of membership talks with Croatia because Zagreb has failed to surrender a Croatian former general to the U.N. war crimes tribunal for trial.

Entry negotiations had been scheduled to start on Thursday.

But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said "our judgment is that it cannot take place from tomorrow, because a key precondition for the beginning of the negotiations was full cooperation with the international criminal tribunal in the Hague, and I regret that the evidence is that Croatia has not cooperated as fully as we would wish.''

Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot, speaking before an EU foreign ministers' meeting to discuss the issue, said: "There will be a negative decision. We need a clear signal Croatia is cooperating with the war crimes tribunal.''

The EU is now expected to tell Zagreb that entry talks will start as soon as Zagreb delivers former Gen. Ante Gotovina for trial at the U.N. court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Gotovina faces charges of killing 150 Serbs and expelling 150,000 others during Croatia's 1995 offensive to recapture land seized by Serb rebels following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

EU leaders decided in December to start entry negotiations with Croatia on March 17.

But 21 of the 25 EU nations want the date put back because U.N. chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte says Croatia is not doing enough to track down Gotovina, even though he is "within reach'' of the authorities in Zagreb. The decision to start membership talks require unanimity.

"The conditions (of full cooperation with the war crimes tribunal) must be met'' before Croatia can start negotiating EU entry terms, said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, who was chairing the meeting.

Asselborn said Croatia will be assured that "negotiations will open as soon possible once the conditions'' are met.

On the eve of the EU meeting, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said Gotovina _ considered a hero by many in Croatia _ was no longer in the country, and therefore his government could not extradite him.

Only Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia wanted negotiations with Croatia to start as planned, arguing that Zagreb has made the necessary economic and political reforms to qualify for membership talks.

March 15, 2005 - SANADER AND MARTENS: CROATIA IS FULLY COOPERATING WITH ICTY - News





BRUSSELS, March 15 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and the President of the European People's Party (EPP), Wilfried Martens, said in Brussels on Tuesday that Croatia was fully cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

They also said that they expected Croatia's EU entry talks to start on Thursday as scheduled. Sanader arrived at EPP headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday to convey assurances that Croatia has met all the requirements for the start of accession talks between Zagreb and Brussels.

"Croatia expects the entry talks to start on 17 March. I am sure that Croatia has met the condition of full cooperation with the ICTY, which the European Council set on 17 March 2004," Sanader told a news conference, with Martens at his side.

Sanader added that Croatia had sent two letters informing the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU that it was fully cooperating with the ICTY and described all what it had done in this field.

"According to our information and all our sources from Croatia, Gotovina is not in Croatia. That is the only and full truth," the Croatian PM said.

Croatia has responded to the 17 December invitation of the European Council, and we are sure that it is fully cooperating with the Hague Tribunal, which is what the Council requested, Martens said.

Martens announced that the EPP would ask the EU Council to decide on opening the talks on 17 March.

We in the EPP, which is the largest group in the European Parliament, are absolutely sure that the Croatian authorities are fully and unreservedly cooperating with the ICTY, and that they are taking comprehensive and far-reaching measures to arrest General Gotovina, Martens said.

He voiced confidence that it was the European Union that had the exclusive right to decide on the matter, regardless of views of some other institutions, non-EU members and individuals.

Therefore we insist that the EU Council decide on the start of the talks, he said.

Croatian authorities can fully cooperate with the ICTY even if they do not locate Gotovina, because they cannot locate him if he is not in Croatia, Martens said in response to a reporter's question.

Sanader added that Croatia did not want a decision on the start of Croatia's entry talks to cause divisions within the Union. He thanked the EPP for its support to Croatia in its bid to join the EU.

Sanader said he was expecting that conclusions of the EPP foreign ministers would convey full and unreserved support for the start of the accession negotiations on Thursday.

He said that Croatia was sharing Martens's interpretation that full cooperation "means that Croatia is doing its utmost" in the search for the runaway general.

ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte told Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn on Tuesday that Croatia was still not fully cooperating with the tribunal, spokespersons for Del Ponte and Asselborn told Hina.

Del Ponte held an unscheduled meeting with Asselborn in The Hague ahead of the EU's decision on whether or not it would open membership talks with Croatia on March 17.

Well, it's perhaps the first time I've seen that JW is delighted about a left majority (opponion). :wink:

Walter, my only delight would be to see Le Worm in jail where he belongs He's enough of a crook, IMO, that he'll manage to get a majority vote, so no worries for his supporters.

Budget Deal Will Help Start EU Summit

Dismay after second poll confirms "no" will win French EU referendum

21/03/2005

Consternation gripped the government of President Jacques Chirac Monday after a second poll in four days showed a majority of the French public rejecting the EU constitution at a referendum in ten weeks.
The Ipsos survey in Le Figaro newspaper showed 52 percent preparing to vote "no" on May 29, with 48 percent for the "yes" -- a spectacular leap of 12 points in just two weeks.
It confirmed the findings of Friday's poll in Le Parisien newspaper, which put opposition to the constitution at 51 percent. That was the first time the "no" vote had led in the polls and it sent a shockwave through France's political establishment.
Both surveys found that the main factor boosting the "no" camp was the conversion of many Socialist party voters. The rise in "no" supporters coincided with a wave of strikes and demonstrations in France, and rejection of the constitution is now the majority position on the country's political left. The figures were disastrous news for President Jacques Chirac, who has put his political weight behind the EU constitution, and showed the difficulties of mobilising support for a document that few members of the public pretend to understand clearly.
They were also an embarrassment for the opposition Socialist partywhich is officially campaigning for the constitution but is riven by a deep internal split.
The rise in support for the "no" campaign was being watched with anxiety in Brussels, where insiders warned that a rejection of the constitution by so important a country as France would be a disastrous setback for the European Union.

"If France votes no, the constitution is dead," said Daniel Keohane of the Centre for European Reform. "The momentum is on the no side. It's going to be difficult to regain and it's worrying." ...

Yes, that was posted already on top of this page.