16 October 2004	Saturday	01 Ramazan 1425

BRUSSELS: Proposals to build centres for asylum- seekers outside the EU will be back on the table at the next European summit in Brussels Nov 5.

The outgoing European Commission and some European Union (EU) member countries are keeping the controversial move at arm's length, but experts fear that some member states and the incoming commission will breathe new life into it.

Proposals to set up transit camps for asylum seekers across the Mediterranean provoke outrage among many. But so do images of would-be asylum seekers who land continually on Lampdusa island, Italy's southernmost outpost.

The Italian, British and German governments argue that thousands of lives would be saved if refugees were intercepted before they reach Europe, in order to separate economic immigrants from genuine asylum seekers. But the European Association for the Protection of Human Rights (FIDH-AE), an umbrella group of some of Europe's leading human rights organizations, is appealing to governments and parliamentarians against the creation of camps outside European borders.

"It's cynical to abuse the deaths of thousands of refugees to justify the creation of camps in North Africa," FIDH-AE president Dan Van Raemdonck told IPS. "It is illusory to think that those camps would deter people from risking their lives to get across. The idea serves another purpose, namely to undermine the right to political asylum and to take on a more repressive policy towards refugees."

FIDH-AE is gathering signatures from parliamentarians, NGOs and civilians for its campaign in time for the Nov 5 summit. The appeal has been supported so far by15 NGOs and three French members of the European Parliament (MEPs), among them European Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

The Liberal and Green factions of the European Parliament fiercely oppose the processing EU asylum claims in third countries. "One can cautiously refer to them as 'centres' or 'migration portals', but what we are talking about adds up to nothing less than preventing candidates for asylum from entering the territory of the Union and to access the procedure for asylum; a right which is guaranteed by the Geneva Convention of 1951," Cohn-Bendit said in a statement released by his office.

It is legally difficult to apply for asylum in a EU country from within Libya, because it is not a signatory to the Geneva convention on refugees. Some EU member states, among them France and Belgium, have used that argument to keep the idea at bay.

Outgoing commissioner for justice and home affairs Antonio Vitorino spoke of "an open mind to these approaches" at a conference in Brussels Oct 4, but he cautioned that "third countries need to accede and adhere to all relevant legal instruments, in particular the 1951 refugee convention" and that the EU needs to "complete the creation of our common European asylum system." Such a system will not be in place before 2010, experts say.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the first to suggest 'transit centres' and 'regional processing centres' at a European summit in Thessaloniki in Greece in 2003. His proposals were quickly rejected by most European leaders.

The proposal re-emerged in slightly altered form at an informal meeting of European interior ministers in the Dutch town Scheveningen Oct 1. German interior minister Otto Schily said processing centres could be a means of stopping illegal immigration in Europe. But again European ministers could not find common ground.

Human rights groups are concerned that the new European Commission, the EU's executive, will take up the idea after it takes office on Nov 1. Incoming commission president Josi Manuel Barroso was the architect of a more restrictive asylum policy in Portugal.

Vitorino's successor Rocco Buttiglione has emerged as an enthusiastic proponent of enhanced border controls, and processing centres in North Africa. Under pressure from the European parliament Buttiglione has redefined asylum camps as "centres for humanitarian assistance."

"The idea of building transit camps is still high on the European agenda," says Claire Rodier of Gisti, a French organization that specializes in immigration law, and one of the 15 NGOs supporting the appeal against such centres. "Europe wants to dodge its moral and legal obligation to protect refugees by locking up people in camps in North Africa." -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.