EU: Fast-track to expelling migrants
01 May 2002
The EU Summit in Seville adopted a whole series of measures on immigration and asylum which reflect the post 11 September ideology. Although a number of the proposals had been foreseen in the Tampere Council (1999) much of the content of sweeping new programmes has been influenced by numerous meetings with USA officials. At the February Justice and Home Affairs Ministers Council a "Comprehensive Action plan to combat illegal immigration and trafficking of human beings in the EU" was adopted with no parliamentary scrutiny and no public debate. No drafts of the measure were available until after its adoption.
On 10 April the European Commission put out a "Green Paper" (a consultation document) on "A Community return policy on illegal immigration". It is usual for the Commission to leave a year or more for national parliaments, the European Parliament and civil society to make their views known. On this occasion the deadline was set for 31 July. But if the Commission was acting with unseemly haste EU governments simply ignored the idea of consultation.
Barely two weeks after the Green Paper was issued the Council of the European Union (the 15 governments) adopted criteria on new readmission agreements and a list of countries (expulsion requires the cooperation of the receiving third world state). On 11 July the Danish Presidency of the Council put out a draft programme on expulsion and Council working parties discussed this at meetings on 17 and 22/23 July. A Commission "Communication", a formal proposal for an new Directive is scheduled for September and for adoption by the Council in November.
Moreover, on 27 June the German delegation put forward: "An initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany for a Council Directive on assistance in cases of transit for the purpose of expulsion by air". The proposal would require all Member States to help each others to expel migrants including detention and "using legitimate force to prevent or end any attempt by the third-country alien to resist transit" - the term "prevent" implies the use of restraints which have already led to the death of a number of people. Each Member State will automatically have to accept the word of the Member State requesting assistance that there is no risk of torture, death or other inhuman or degrading treatment for the migrant in the state of destination. The requested EU Member State would not be obliged or even permitted to consider whether this was in fact the case, as long as the officials of the requesting EU Member State have ticked a box on a form asserting that there is no such risk.
The German government proposal can be compared with the already agreed Directive on mutual recognition of expulsion decisions (2001/40). This Directive was flawed but it did require the requested EU Member State to ensure that there any no human rights risks; permit migrants to challenge an expulsion order; only applies to expulsion in limited cases; and includes express data protection rights. The new proposal on transit contains none of these essential limits and safeguards and would lead to huge risks of violation of fundamental human rights.
The Commission's Green Paper on "returns" (expulsions) itself begs many questions. It covers the "return" of "illegal" migrants to their country of origin or country of "transit" (a country they passed through in reaching the EU). The overall object is to "improve cooperation" between the "receiving states" (transit countries), countries of origin and: the UNHCR, IOM and NGOs with a view to facilitating voluntary and involuntary returns"
Some very basic figures are given: 367,552 people were "removed" in 2000 (but this does not include Ireland, Netherlands and the UK and the data from Belgium, Denmark and Luxembourg was incomplete). In addition the "International Organisation for Migration" (IOM) carried out 87,628 so-called "assisted voluntary returns" (68,648 of these were by Germany).
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