How to reply to so many questions?” “

The entry into the European Union of ten new countries could lead to a growth in applications for political asylum, situations of irregularity and the bureaucratic problems arising from them. Consequently, EU capacity to tackle the practical difficulties needs to be reinforced in advance. A series of proposals, including the establishment of an EU Asylum Agency, were presented by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers to European Ministers of the Interior, meeting in Dublin on 22 January. What if the problems increase with enlargement? “Some new states of the European Union may currently rely only on 15 to 20 experts in the field of asylum”, pointed out Lubbers. “Ten years or so ago these countries did not have any asylum system at all. What would happen if thousands of asylum-seekers were sent back to these countries by states within the Union? There’s a danger that in the border states the procedures of harmonization would simply collapse, causing, instead of reducing, a growth in irregular movements between member states of the European Union”. “In short”, stressed Lubbers, “our suggestion is that there should be a progressive trend in the direction of a centralized examination of certain categories of asylum-seekers in EU centres, instead of maintaining every determination of refugee status at the national level. In this way the countries of the EU could pool and share their skills, avoid the duplication of national procedures, wasteful both in terms of time and costs, and curb the flow of uncontrolled movements”. The proposals of UNHCR. The proposals of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) are contained in a seven-page document sent to EU governments before the recent Dublin meeting. They include: the setting up of EU reception centres, where applications may be examined by teams of consultants expert on questions of asylum and interpreters drawn from all over the EU; the introduction of a system of burden sharing, to redistribute those who have been recognised as refugees throughout the EU, rather than leaving a considerable number of them in a limited group of states; the introduction of a joint EU system for the rapid return of those asylum-seekers to whom refugee status is not granted or for whom other forms of international protection are not needed; and the establishment of an EU Agency for Asylum – and subsequently an EU vetting Committee for asylum – to control the new registration and processing of asylum applications, to relieve the burden of work of the individual states and ensure that the responsibilities towards those who enjoy refugee status are equally shared by all member states. The hope: harmonized legislation by mid-2004. “The EU – concluded Lubbers – cannot consider this problem from a completely eurocentric point of view”. “Asylum-seekers come from countries and regions in hardship. Greater attention should be paid to helping them in their places of origin, through more development and a greater effort in the search for protection and solutions at home. Protection should be available wherever and whenever it is most needed – and normally as soon as possible – so that a lower number of these particularly vulnerable people may feel the need to entrust their own destiny to unscrupulous gangs of traffickers in human beings”. The hope is that the first phase of harmonized legislation may be achieved by the middle of the year and that the UNHCR proposals may form the foundation of the second phase of harmonization, and contribute to “a really European approach to the management of irregular flows of immigration”.