European ParliamentChoisissez la langue de votre document :
- bg - български
- es - español
- cs - čeština
- da - dansk
- de - Deutsch
- et - eesti keel
- el - ελληνικά
- en - English (Selected)
- fr - français
- it - italiano
- lv - latviešu valoda
- lt - lietuvių kalba
- hu - magyar
- mt - Malti
- nl - Nederlands
- pl - polski
- pt - português
- ro - română
- sk - slovenčina
- sl - slovenščina
- fi - suomi
- sv - svenska
| Procedure : 2008/0244(COD) |
|
Document stages in plenary
| Document selected : A6-0285/2009 | ||||||
Texts tabled : A6-0285/2009 |  | Debates : PV 06/05/2009 - 12CRE 06/05/2009 - 12 |  | Votes : PV 07/05/2009 - 9.5Explanations of votes Explanations of votes Explanations of votes |  | Texts adopted : P6_TA(2009)0376 |
| REPORT ***I |
| ||||
| 29 April 2009 |
| ||||
|
on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers (recast) (COM(2008)0815 – C6-0477/2008 – 2008/0244(COD)) | |||||
| |||||
 | |||||
 DRAFT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers (recast) (COM(2008)0815 – C6-0477/2008 – 2008/0244(COD)) (Codecision procedure – recast) The European Parliament, – having regard to the Commission proposal to the European Parliament and the Council (COM(2008)0815), – having regard to Article 251(2) and Article 63(1)(b) of the EC Treaty, pursuant to which the Commission submitted the proposal to Parliament (C6-0477/2008), – having regard to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 28 November 2001 on a more structured use of the recasting technique for legal acts(1), – having regard to the letter of 25 February 2009 from the Committee on Legal Affairs to the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in accordance with Rule 80a(3) of its Rules of Procedure, – having regard to Rules 80a and 51 of its Rules of Procedure, – having regard to the report of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs (A6-0285/2009), A. whereas, according to the Consultative Working Party of the Legal Services of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, the proposal in question does not include any substantive amendments other than those identified as such in the proposal and whereas, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier acts together with those amendments, the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing texts, without any change in their substance, 1. Approves the Commission proposal as adapted to the recommendations of the Consultative Working Party of the legal services of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission and as amended below; 2. Calls on the Commission to refer the matter to Parliament again if it intends to amend the proposal substantially or replace it with another text; 3. Instructs its President to forward its position to the Council and the Commission.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| EXPLANATORY STATEMENT |
| |||
|
‘The State (Mexico) is taking these (Spanish Republican) children into its care, and surrounding them with affection and education, so that tomorrow they may be worthy defenders of your country's ideals' (Letter from Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas to Manuel Azaña, his Spanish counterpart). The European Union is above all a community of values shared by its Member States and brought together in its Charter of Fundamental Rights (hereinunder the Charter), the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. These rights include the right of asylum, Article 18 of the Charter, as set out in the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and the Protocol of 31 January 1967 on the Status of Refugees, and the right to subsidiary protection, Article 19 of the Charter, which prohibits collective expulsions. Asylum is a fundamental and at the same time transitory right, enjoyment whereof depends on persecution in the country of origin. Recognition of asylum needs to guarantee the full personal development of asylum-seekers, as President Cárdenas said to President Azaña, so that, for example, children being looked after today can be tomorrow's defenders of the ideals of freedom, by means of their provisional integration into the hosting country. The right to asylum unites democratic countries in protecting and promoting their values. Following the Tampere European Council, during the first stage of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) (1999-2005), the objective was to harmonise Member States’ legal frameworks on the basis of common minimum standards. The second phase aims to put into operation a common asylum procedure and a uniform statute for beneficiaries of asylum or subsidiary protection. It was in this context that Council Directive 2003/09/EC laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum-seekers was adopted, leaving the Member States a significant margin of discretion. Some years further down the line, the assessments by the Commission and visits by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) reveal that the procedures and conditions of reception of asylum seekers are still highly problematic and disparate, a fact which leads to secondary movements of asylum-seekers and runs counter to the principles of equal access to protection in the Union. Parliament has had occasion to denounce unacceptable suffering on the part of these asylum-seekers within the European Union, and has also pointed out the unequal burden borne by the Member States. Although funding has improved, the European Refugee Fund is inadequate to the challenges facing us. While this first package of codecision reports on asylum represents a qualitative leap in the role played hitherto by Parliament, we must not lose sight of the fact that the goal is to create a common regulation on asylum. An excellent Commission proposal Your rapporteur warmly welcomes the proposal recasting Directive 2003/9/EC laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum-seekers and firmly supports the spirit of the text submitted by the Commission. The new Directive will contribute to harmonising and improving the rules on reception and to limiting secondary movements. He believes the following proposals to be essential: 1. Scope of the Directive - The inclusion of applicants for subsidiary protection, so as to ensure consistency with the rest of the Community acquis (the ‘qualification’ directive which introduces the concept of ‘subsidiary protection’, whose parallels with asylum are recognised in the recent Elgafaji ruling of 17 February 2009). - The application of the directive to all asylum procedures, geographical areas and reception centres for applicants, including borders and transit areas. 2. Access to the labour market, which is beneficial both to the asylum-seeker and the Member State: the idea is to grant simplified, better-harmonised access to the labour market, no later than six months after the submission of an application for international protection. Effective access to employment must not be hampered by administrative restrictions. Access to the labour market is the best way of guaranteeing the autonomy and wellbeing of persons who have been obliged to abandon their own countries due to well-founded fears of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership of a social group. It prevents social isolation and situations of chronic dependence. Paid work contributes to greater awareness within the host society of the circumstances of the asylum-seekers and the contribution they can make to society. Access to the labour market is essential to their being able to contribute, Cárdenas said, to bringing to an end repression in their countries of origin. The establishment of additional obligations incumbent on asylum-seekers in order to gain access to the labour market, such as demanding work permits, should under no circumstance whatever lead to any extension of the established deadline of six months. 3. Access to material reception conditions with a view to guaranteeing a living standard for the asylum-seekers which is conducive to their health and will guarantee subsistence: the proposal obliges the Member States to use as a yardstick the level of social assistance the Member States provide for their own nationals. 4. Detention: your rapporteur recalls the principle whereby nobody should be held in detention simply because they have requested international protection, and likewise, the need to include rigorous procedural guarantees when it comes to provisional detention. Someone being pursued by regimes hostile to freedom cannot be placed in detention in Europe, let alone imprisoned on the grounds that they are fleeing such persecution. In accordance with European law (the Charter) and international law (ECHR and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), the Commission proposal guarantees that detention may be authorised for exceptional reasons, always in accordance with the principle of necessity and proportionality, and subject to individual assessment in every case. Situations involving public security and/or data verification and/or the circumstances of the case, which make administrative measures on provisional extraordinary detention appropriate, do indeed exist; the procedure established in the original Commission proposal reduces these situations to acceptable minima with reasonable deadlines and strict guarantees. Judicial supervision and regular review are guaranteed. 5. Legal assistance. From the first moment, the asylum-seeker has to have the right to enjoy maximum legal guarantees; they need to be able to count on high-quality legal assistance which will help them to understand their rights. Legal assistance needs to be guaranteed in less than the 72 hours envisaged, as the European Council of Human Rights notes in its much-quoted ruling on Saadi v UK, deeming any period longer than 48 hours a violation of Article 5(2) of the ECHR. The UNHCR and other specialist NGOs should have the right to visit the facilities where persons in provisional detention are being held, and the latter should never be mixed in with ordinary prisoners. 6. Vulnerable groups: the intention is to guarantee the specific needs of vulnerable individuals such as minors, the disabled, the elderly, victims of trafficking in human beings, of torture and of genital mutilation, the sick, etc. so that they can be identified at the outset, as well as at any later stage in the asylum procedure, so that they can be provided with the requisite care. This early attention to their needs will help to speed up the processing and prevent deceit. It is important that the Member States, when assessing the best interests of minors, should take particular account of the following: (a) the possibility of family reunification; (b) the ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of minors; (c) the risk that they may be prey to trafficking in children; (d) the opinion of the minors concerned, with due respect to their age and maturity. 7. Right to be properly informed in a language the applicants understand. It is essential, in order to guarantee that asylum-seekers properly understand what their rights are, that these be made available to them in a language which they understand, so that, as the European Court of Human Rights observes, these rights can be explained to them in simple, non-technical language, so that they can request that these rights be defended before a court. Conclusions Your rapporteur identifies wholeheartedly with the basic aim of the Commission proposal, namely ‘to ensure higher standards of treatment for asylum-seekers with regard to reception conditions that guarantee a dignified standard of living, in line with international law'. Aware that many of the shortcomings in the reception conditions for asylum-seekers are due to disparities in interpretation and application between the different Member States, your rapporteur supports the stepping up of the Commission’s monitoring powers. The exchange of good practice between Member States should likewise contribute to greater convergence in the way these reception standards are applied. Parliament, through its LIBE Committee, should establish a timetable for visiting detention centres. Any proposal seeking to limit the guarantees put forward by the Commission and those contained in the amendments put forward by your rapporteur should be rejected by a humanitarian majority within Parliament; the goal is to improve the text. Your rapporteur is aware that enhancing the privileged treatment of asylum-seekers vis-à-vis immigrants wishing to enter the EU may give rise to multiple applications without any grounds whatever. It is technically complex to establish administrative sanctions against people who make underhand or abusive use of the procedure; however, asylum-seekers duly and legally assisted, who are asking for international protection without being the objects of any persecution whatever, should have to have to be answerable and face prejudice or negative consequences of some kind in their administrative relations with the EU. Those who assess asylum-seekers should endeavour to put across the principle of procedural good faith. This would also contribute effectively if indirectly to swifter processing of well-founded applications for asylum. Recent case-law, moreover, confirms the thesis put forward in the Commission proposal as to the appropriateness of simultaneously dealing with individuals seeking asylum and those seeking subsidiary protection. | ||||
| ANNEX: LETTER FROM THE COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AFFAIRS |
| |||
|
COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AFFAIRS CHAIRMAN Ref.: D(2009)19544 Mr Gérard DEPREZ Chairman Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs ASP 09G206 BRUSSELS Subject: Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers (recast) (COM(2008)815 - C6-0477/2008 - 2008/0244(COD Dear Chairman, The Committee on Legal Affairs, which I am honoured to chair, has examined the proposal referred to above, pursuant to Rule 80a on Recasting, as introduced into the Parliament's Rules of Procedure by its Decision of 10 May 2007. Paragraph 3 of that Rule reads as follows: "If the committee responsible for legal affairs considers that the proposal does not entail any substantive changes other than those identified as such in the proposal, it shall inform the committee responsible. In such a case, over and above the conditions laid down in Rules 150 and 151, amendments shall be admissible within the committee responsible only if they concern those parts of the proposal which contain changes. However, amendments to the parts which have remained unchanged may be admitted by way of exception and on a case-by-case basis by the chairman of the above committee if he considers that this is necessary for pressing reasons relating to the internal logic of the text or because the amendments are inextricably linked to other admissible amendments. Such reasons must be stated in a written justification to the amendments". Following the opinion of the Legal Service, whose representatives participated in the meetings of the Consultative Working Party examining the recast proposal, and in keeping with the recommendations of the draftsperson, the Committee on Legal Affairs considers that the proposal in question does not include any substantive changes other than those identified as such in the proposal and that, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier acts with those changes, the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing texts, without any change in their substance. In conclusion, after discussing it at its meeting of 31 March 2009, the Committee on Legal Affairs, by 17 votes in favour and no abstentions(1), recommends that your Committee, as the committee responsible, proceed to examine the above proposal in keeping with its suggestions and in accordance with Rule 80a. Yours faithfully, Giuseppe GARGANI Encl.: Opinion of the Consultative Working Party.
| ||||
| ANNEX: OPINION OF THE CONSULTATIVE WORKING PARTY OF THE LEGAL SERVICES OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL AND THE COMMISSION |
| |||||||||
Brussels, OPINION FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT THE COUNCIL THE COMMISSION Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers Having regard to the Inter-institutional Agreement of 28 November 2001 on a more structured use of the recasting technique for legal acts, and in particular to point 9 thereof, the Consultative Working Party consisting of the respective legal services of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission met on 17 December 2008(1) for the purpose of examining, among others, the aforementioned proposal submitted by the Commission. An examination of the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council recasting Council Directive 2003/9/EC of 27 January 2003 laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers (COM(2008) 815 final/2 of 9.12.2008 - 2008/0244 (COD)) resulted in the Consultative Working Party’s concluding, without dissent, that the proposal does not comprise any substantive amendments other than those identified as such. The Working Party also concluded, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier act with those substantive amendments, that the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing text, without any change in its substance. C. PENNERA J.-C. PIRIS C.-F.DURAND Jurisconsult Jurisconsult Director General
| ||||||||||
| PROCEDURE |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last updated: 30 April 2009 | Legal notice |