Report from Copenhagen:Trevi & Immigration
01 January 1991
Report from Copenhagen:Trevi & Immigration
artdoc July=1993
The meeting of the Immigration/Trevi Ministers (Interior
Ministers of the EC) in Copenhagen on 1-2 June carried forward
several of the initiatives taken over the past three years. On
1 June the day started with a meeting of the `Troika' (Ministers
and officials from Denmark, then holding Presidency of the EC,
the UK, as the last holder, and Belgium as the country taking
over on 1 July). Immigration and asylum formed the agenda for the
rest of the morning when they agreed resolutions on: family
reunification, refugees from Yugoslavia and on illegal immigrants
within the EC. The whole afternoon, as at the previous meeting
in London on 30 November, was taken up with the vexed question
of the abolition of internal border controls. In the morning on
2 June, the Ministers took reports from the Trevi Senior
Officials Group and signed the ministerial agreement on the
European Drugs Unit. In the afternoon the Troika Ministers and
their officials, met with the `Friends of Trevi' (the USA,
Canada, Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and
Morocco).
Targeting `illegal' immigrants
The EC is putting in place a number of policies to stop the entry
of immigrants and asylum seekers - the Dublin Convention
(introducing the `one-stop' rule for asylum seekers), the
Parallel Dublin agreements with the EFTA countries, Eastern
Europe and Canada, the External Borders Convention (which sets
out categories of people to be excluded) and the creation of the
European Information computer system (which will include a list
of those to be refused entry to the EC). This meeting agreed
measures to seek out `illegal' people already resident within the
EC, thus opening the way for the harassment of all black and
Third World people resident within the EC.
The measure was drawn up the Sub-Group on Expulsion of the Ad
Hoc Group on Immigration which was set up in February 1992. It
has met 18 times (6 times during the Portuguese presidency, 6
times during the UK presidency and 6 times during the Danish
presidency). As is the practice in intergovernmental groups like
this police, immigration and security services officers draw up
proposals in secret, present their conclusions for Ministerial
approval and only then are the contents published. Once adopted
resolutions are intended to be common policy guidelines for EC
member states and are not subject to parliamentary approval or
discussion. In this instance between the final draft of the
resolution prepared for the Ministers meeting (dated 16 May 1993)
a number of amendments proposed by the French delegation were
adopted.
The resolution opens with the general statement that: `it is
fundamental to expulsion practices that there should also be
effective means of identifying and apprehending those to be
expelled' to which a French amendment added the need to improve
`means for checking and expelling third-country nationals who are
in an irregular situation'. The measures are intended to target
`the employment of those known to have entered or remained
illegally or those whose immigration status does not allow them
to work'. Nationals and their families from EFTA countries are
excluded from the provisions.
The detailed measures set out those not entitled to remain
within the EC as people who 1] `remained unlawfully'; 2] those
liable to `expulsion on grounds of public policy or national
security'; and 3] those who asylum application has been turned
down. Those to be expelled include people working in breach of
their entry conditions and those, subject to `immigration/aliens
provisions who have been involved in facilitation, harbouring or
employment of illegal immigrants'. The resolution calls for
`checks' to be made on those `known or suspected' of staying or
working without authority. Two further groups are singled out as
in need of checks to detect `abuse', people allowed to ente