UNHCR urges Sweden to seek fairer EU asylum policy
23 Jun 2009 13:32:03 GMT Source: Reuters
* UNHCR urges Sweden to have rights-based approach on asylum * Italy's "push-backs" of boat people give rise to concerns * Racism, xenophobia seen as posing threat to EU core values By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA, June 23 (Reuters) - Sweden should ensure the European Union offers protection and a fair chance to asylum seekers when it takes over the bloc's rotating presidency next month, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday. People fleeing war or persecution are treated differently across the 27-member bloc, and some states including Italy have turned back African migrants without even considering their claims, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. It called on Sweden, the main European destination for Iraqi refugees, to push for equitable treatment in the bloc's asylum policies that are due to be set in December for 2010-2014. "Recent events, including Italy's push-backs of boat people and elections in which anti-immigrant parties scored big gains in a number of EU countries, give rise to concern about Europe's commitment to ensure access to protection," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told a news briefing in Geneva. Decade-long efforts to harmonise EU asylum rules have yielded "mixed" results, the UNHCR said. Applications lodged by people with the same nationality and similar case histories have "divergent outcomes" from one EU state to another. Minimum standards now in place leave considerable room for discretion, and are implemented unevenly, the agency said in a policy paper posted on its website www.unhcr.org. This, it stressed, undermined the rights of those fleeing war or persecution who are entitled to international protection under the 1951 U.N. refugee convention. "The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urges the Swedish presidency to use this opportunity to reassert the importance of ensuring that persons who need international protection can find it, both inside and outside the European Union," it said. "Racism, xenophobia and discrimination pose a threat, not only to the integration of newcomers in the EU, but to the Union's core values," it continued, calling for upholding human rights at border crossings and immigration offices. The UNHCR recommended legislative and practical measures to resolve "problems of consistency and quality" in EU policy, and said better safeguards were needed to improve the conditions in which asylum seekers -- including children -- are detained. Italy drew sharp criticism in May after turning away African migrants intercepted in the Mediterranean and returning their boats to Libya without allowing asylum requests to be filed. The UNHCR, while supporting calls from Italy for northern EU states to share the burden of hosting asylum-seekers arriving to the bloc by sea, primarily to Italy, Malta and Spain, said migrants need to be properly processed and not just sent back. "The common European asylum system will fail to meet its central objective if persons seeking protection are not able to apply for it in the EU or at its borders," its policy note read. It also called for Brussels to do more to take in refugees now being sheltered in other countries of asylum, many of whom are also poor and cannot afford to keep caring for them. The European Union took in fewer than 1 in 10 refugees resettled worldwide last year -- just 7,000 of the 79,000 most vulnerable who were offered a home in new countries. (Editing by Laura MacInnis and Sophie Hares)
A woman, who fled from her home after violence in Lalgarh, stands behind a classroom of a school which was converted into a makeshift refugee camp at Pirakata near Lalgarh, some ...
