2/12/2005
UNHCR Concerned About Recent Adoption Of EU Asylum Directive

The recent European Union directive on asylum procedures adopted this week in Brussels by the EU's 25 member states may lead to a serious downgrading of asylum standards the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has warned. The directive sets minimum norms for adjudicating asylum claims. But it could lead to breaches of international refugee law if no additional safeguards are introduced, the agency says. “This could have wider implications, eroding international standards of refugee protection far beyond the EU,” said a UNHCR spokesman.

UNHCR is particularly concerned about certain rules allowing states to designate safe third countries outside the EU, to which asylum seekers can be turned back without even having had their claims heard in an EU member state.

The directive, say UNHCR, also fails to spell out clearly that asylum seekers cannot be sent back to their countries of origin while waiting for the outcome of their appeals, thus removing the right to an effective remedy in the event that an error has been made.

In addition, the agency suggest that it permits a number of other restrictive and highly controversial practices that are currently only contained in one or two member states’ national legislation, but which could be inserted in the legislation of all 25 EU states.

“UNHCR calls on member states not to aim at the lowest common level permitted by the directive when they implement the agreed rules into their national legislation, but to strive to ensure adequate safeguards and high standards of protection for refugees,” the spokesman said.
“ But we are disappointed by the failure of member states to live up to their commitment to international asylum standards,” he said in reference to the new directive.

UNHCR generally supports the harmonisation of asylum processes in Europe and has done so since 1999 when at a meeting in Tampere, Finland in 1999, EU countries committed themselves to the absolute respect for the right to seek asylum and the full application of the 1951 Geneva Convention.