Europe lukewarm on asylum centres plan
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Your support makes all the difference.British plans under which asylum-seekers could be deported to special centres outside the European Union were given a lukewarm reception by justice ministers yesterday.
Officials have been asked to study the proposals but Germany voiced its opposition, arguing that they could make the asylum crisis worse.
The blueprint, put forward by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, would allow for reception centres to be set up in countries such as Albania or the Ukraine, and would mean that only those asylum-seekers whose applications were successful would be allowed to enter the EU. The plans also foresee the establishment of safe havens where refugees would stay until they could safely return to their homes.
With UK asylum claims exceeding 100,000 last year, the Government has promised to halve the number of applications by September. But the plans, which have already been criticised by human rights campaigners, were attacked yesterday by Otto Schily, the German Interior Minister, who argued that they could make the asylum problem worse by drawing would-be refugees to the reception centres. "I don't think such [detention] centres are able to reduce the number of refugees coming to Germany. A question mark hangs over whether this is a useful measure," Mr Schily said, adding: "I am also of the opinion a quota system cannot function either."
Mr Blunkett received support from Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Italy, but other nations, including Portugal, were sceptical of the detail and France did not indicate its position.
The Home Secretary described the plan as "ideas for the future" and not an "instant policy, something that could be introduced overnight".
Britain wants the centres to be run by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The European Commission made clear yesterday that it would have no role in managing them. Julia Purcell, head of the Refugee Council, was also "extremely concerned", adding that "these proposals amount to a shifting, rather than a sharing, of responsibilities" and would leave the poorest countries carrying an ever-growing proportion of the world's refugees.
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