UN/EU: The UN refugee agency yesterday harshly criticised EU proposals for asylum-seekers, saying they would not achieve the intended goal of harmonising treatment across the 15-nation bloc and could violate international law.
In one of his fiercest attacks on the EU over asylum, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Mr Ruud Lubbers said the plan was so flawed that it might be better to withdraw it and wait for a "more propitious" moment to produce another.
"I fear this directive will be reduced to a catalogue of optional provisions, including significant departures from accepted international refugee and human rights law," he said in a letter to Italian Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.
Asylum is a hot political topic in Europe and right-wing parties have used the issue of illegal immigration to make electoral gains. The UNHCR has long backed harmonising EU asylum rules so that those seeking protection know their rights. But over half of EU members have introduced new regulations, mainly aimed at curbing illegal immigration and asylum requests, since the drive to set EU-wide rules began, human rights sources say.
UNHCR took particular aim at the draft's idea for so-called safe countries to which would-be asylum-seekers could be returned or even in some cases sent if their own country was not safe. It also objected to proposals allowing EU states to expel rejected asylum-seekers before their appeals are heard.
In Brussels, a spokesman for EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, Mr Antonio Vitorino, said the EU executive shared some of UNHCR's concerns and promised that no law would be passed that "contradicts . . . basic human rights standards."