Mr Chairman, distinguished delegates, valued NGO colleagues,

This statement has been prepared by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) in our role as the UNHCR PARinAC Focal point for Europe.

Rather than trying to cover many different developments in Europe I would like to focus on the following key issues:

The Amsterdam Treaty and the forthcoming summit of European Union Heads of Government;

The work of the EU High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration;

Developments in Central and Eastern Europe;

Kosovo.

On 1 May the Amsterdam Treaty came into force. This may make 1999 a decisive year in determining the future direction of asylum policy within the European Union. In the Treaty of Amsterdam the European Union has set itself an agenda of work for the next five years to establish binding European measures, replacing earlier non-binding measures, dating from the pre-Amsterdam era. For the first time the Heads of Governments of the EU member states will discuss asylum and migration issues during their Summit in October in the town of Tampere in Finland. The outcome of this meeting will be essential in laying the right foundations for the development of the new measures. The new measures to be developed should therefore not automatically copy the earlier non-binding EU instruments without reconsidering them in the light of the Refugee Convention. The European NGO community sees it as essential that the Heads of Government at the Tampere Summit make a clear commitment to the Refugee Convention, the European Convention on Human rights and other international human Rights instruments as the foundation for European Union Asylum policy.

Last Monday Mr. Fortin stated that UNHCR’s Protection Department does not necessarily reject concepts such as ‘safe third country’, temporary protection regimes, etc. but that it is very concerned about their implementation in practice. We noted a reaction to his statement from the representative of an EU member state, who welcomed the opportunity to debate with UNHCR the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty. The NGO community would expect the EU governments to go further than this. Given the way such concepts are implemented, often with disrespect for the Refugee Convention and leading to refoulement of refugees, the Tampere Summit should commit itself to follow the guidance of UNHCR as to the correct interpretation of the Convention and so reinforce UNHCR’s role as guarantor of the international refugee protection system, not only in Europe but across the globe.

The idea of a common European asylum area can only be applicable if an asylum-seeker can be assured of receiving similar standards of reception and of having access to similar asylum procedures, regardless of the Member State where an application is lodged. There should not only be common standards of interpretation of the refugee definition. Also the procedures must be fair and efficient and hence enable the asylum seeker to fully present his or her claim. Resources have to be invested in the first decisions of these procedures, so that they are correct. ECRE is currently developing guidelines for such procedures which will be ready before the Tampere Summit. We are also urging a thorough evaluation of the implementation of the Dublin Convention before it gets transposed into a new legal instrument under the Amsterdam Treaty and to contribute to this the NGOs are already studying its present implementation.

Many of you will remember the Austrian Strategy paper which received much criticism during last year’s Pre-Excom meeting. Discussions about issues in this paper have continued in the European Union. The German EU Presidency has produced new papers under the title ‘Guidelines for a European Migration Strategy’.

Without passing a final judgment before final texts are produced, I will focus on positive issues. We welcome references in this paper to the ‘crucial positive impact of immigration’. We also welcome that the paper ‘confirms the commitments of the European Community and its Member States under international law and emphasises that, under Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 63 of the EC Treaty, all future measures must be consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights and the Geneva Refugee Convention’. Furthermore the paper stresses the need to ‘take due account of specialist know-how and give proper consideration to the views of international organisations such as the UNHCR and of the social partners and non-governmental organisations’. If the Tampere Summit were to repeat these statements with a stronger commitment to follow UNHCR guidance, the European NGO community might, for once, be cautiously optimistic.

We also welcome references in the paper to the importance of the integration of refugees. During the course of this year ECRE will publish a policy paper on this issue and several of its member organisations will produce so-called ‘Good Practice Guides’.

This statement has to be limited. If you are interested we have published a detailed blueprint for a principled implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty called ‘Guarding Standards — Shaping the Agenda’. We can send you this on request.

In the presentation on Europe, Mr Bijleveld referred in positive terms to the European Union’s High Level Working Group on Migration and Asylum, which is developing so-called action plans for specific countries from where asylum seekers and migrants emanate. We also have welcomed the establishment of this High Level Working Group as a potentially important step towards a more comprehensive approach to migration and asylum policy. NGOs have not yet received draft reports on the specific countries and I will therefore make general comments. The positive potential will not be realised if the High Level Working Group’s sole objective is to curb the arrival of ‘illegal’ migrants and asylum seekers to the European Union and if its approach is thus primarily control-oriented. As the High Level Working Group’s mandate unambiguously relates to asylum, it is essential that its approach be protection-oriented and human rights based. This was not the case with the ‘EU Action Plan on Illegal Migration from Iraq and the Neighbouring Region’.

It is vital that the High Level Working Group works very closely with UNHCR as well as with the UN human rights mechanisms and international and national human rights NGOs to establish a human rights approach to refugee policy.

The High Level Working Group is engaging in analysis of root causes of mass flight. We hope that its conclusions will be accompanied by concrete policies to address such causes in the areas of human rights, economic development, political dialogue, conflict prevention, and the encouragement of peace, stability, and civil society.

If the European Union is to carry credibility in promoting respect for human rights in other regions of the world, it is essential that it command international respect for its own human rights record. The Member States of the EU must therefore also be seen to fulfil their obligations under the Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, under the UN Human Rights Covenants and under the European Convention on Human Rights. We have heard many expressions during this Standing Committee underlining the position of the Refugee Convention as the basis of asylum policies. In reality, it will often not be possible to eliminate all the root causes of refugee flight and thus refugee flows will persist. The Convention will need to be relied upon for protection. Any action plan must therefore explicitly contain provision of asylum in Europe for those who need it. The NGO community sees this as one of the tests for the seriousness of the commitment to the Convention by EU states.

One of the issues the High Level Working Group is considering is the ‘Regionalisation’ of refugee intake. While it is true that the vast majority of refugees seek refuge in neighbouring countries within their region of origin, some neighbouring countries cannot provide durable protection or ensure their physical integrity. In the past several years and most recently during the crisis in Kosovo, we have witnessed and continue to witness the difficulties (political or otherwise) of neighbouring States to ensure the safety of all refugees as well as their inability to provide treatment in accordance with recognised basic human rights. It is also wholly understandable that a person who faces a risk of persecution or a threat to his/her life should seek protection in as secure an environment as possible. Furthermore, it is a reality of the modern world that refugee flight is sometimes more feasible via an international flight than over land routes. It is also a reality that someone at risk of persecution in another region may have strong family or community ties in Europe. These facts should be acknowledged by European politicians rather than denied.

We stress that reception in the region should not be considered as a substitute for protection in Europe. Rather it should be viewed as a complementary means to enhance the opportunity for refugees to find protection. The Working Group should ensure that any plans for reception in the region should, as a minimum, ensure the human rights of all persons received, and guarantee that such displaced persons are not forced into reception locations against their will. Asylum seekers should never be returned to a region solely on the ground that EU humanitarian aid has sponsored reception facilities to which they supposedly could have fled.

In relation to the use of readmission agreements we repeat concerns about the return of asylum seekers on ‘safe third country’ grounds under the terms of such agreements. We underline the concerns expressed in the UNHCR Note on International Protection in this respect. These agreements usually fail to provide sufficient safeguards to ensure that individuals will be protected from refoulement to their countries of origin. A number of the countries selected for initial consideration by the Working Group should be recognised as being far from safe. This should be acknowledged in the texts of the action plans. Steps should therefore be taken to ensure that readmission agreements are in line with States’ obligations under the 1951 Convention and other human rights instruments.

ECRE has always supported the voluntary return of refugees, so long as they may do so in dignity and safety. This requires an assurance that their fundamental human rights will be protected and that minimum living standards will be available. In reality, the viability of return is usually dependent upon fundamental and durable changes in the country of origin. This embraces a complex range of factors which must be addressed, both individually and holistically. Furthermore, it is an accepted humanitarian principle that persons who are severely traumatised by their experiences in their country of origin should not be expected to return. It is, therefore, essential that the Working Group’s action plans, even where focussing on the issue of return, recall the international legal obligations of EU Member States to continue to provide protection to those who need it.

Turning to Central Europe and Eastern Europe and the CIS, we would like to stress the importance of asylum issues and standards in the accession process of Central European states to the EU. It is essential that the EU involves the Associated States in the debates about new asylum measures, for example any regional measures for responsibility sharing. Also those states which are in the second wave of accessions should be included in this as much as possible. Furthermore, the EU should assist the Associated States to fulfil their obligations under international refugee and human rights law.

The Kosovo crisis has shown the importance of Central European states. The role of the developing refugee assisting NGOs in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary is important in this respect.

We welcome the establishment last week at the CISCON Steering Committee meeting of a new process to consider the follow up of the CISCON activities after the year 2000. This includes the need to find bilateral funding. We want to stress the importance of fully involving in this process both national and international NGOs, which have made great strides in the past three years.

A separate NGO statement has been made about Kosovo, building on our meeting of the ECRE/ICVA Reference Group on Former Yugoslavia which took place in Vienna in the week preceding this Standing Committee. I will not repeat the issues raised in that statement but focus on a few elements.

Many of the delegates have spoken about Kosovo as a positive experience in burden sharing. Others have referred to it as a model for how to use Temporary Protection in the future. The fact that European states other than those immediately bordering Kosovo were willing to receive substantial numbers of Kosovan refugees on their territory was indeed extremely positive. My first comment is that, within the EU, it was not necessarily a great example of burden sharing. Weeks would have been saved if the EU had not stalled its debate about a responsibility sharing scheme before this crisis. This debate should now urgently be concluded.

Secondly, the European refugee NGO community still fails to understand why Kosovan refugees were not offered full refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention within EU member states, or elsewhere in Europe, and why instead a patchwork of subsidiary and temporary statuses has been offered.

Temporary Protection should only be used in situations where a mass influx of asylum seekers cannot be dealt with through the normal determination procedures. Temporary Protection should amount to a suspension of those procedures, nothing else. Given that it is clear that all Kosovars fleeing Kosovo should have been considered as refugees as defined under Article 1A of the Convention (and that was UNHCR’s position), why were they not given group recognition with all the rights that this entails? If it is the fear that those rights are permanent, I would like to stress that the Convention does not stipulate that. We very much hope that UNHCR will include this issue in its evaluation of the reaction to the crisis. As to the immediate situation, we urge the international community, now, at this time of return, to ensure that adequate evaluations of the human rights situation in each part of Kosovo are made before any refugees are expected to return. For those who can never be expected to return we remind the international community of the other two solutions: resettlement and integration in the country of first asylum.

I would like to close my statement with two additional elements of the Kosovan refugee crisis.

The first one is the tremendous public recognition as refugees of those who were forced to flee Kosovo. It is this recognition which helped many European governments to develop a much more positive approach to receiving Kosovan refugees than they initially displayed. This included a stepping up of evacuations from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

The second one is that the myth of refugees as seekers of a better life abroad has now been shown as false — it is clear for everybody to see that hundreds of thousands of refugees are eager go back if the situation substantially changes.

If European governments have courage, vision and a sincere commitment to those who need protection, they will make use of this new mood, and build on it — Tampere will be the place to show that.