PRO ASYL Presseerklärung | Press Release

September, 22nd 2004

German-Austrian division of labour:
dismantling of European right to asylum

Otto Schily: EU reception camps in Africa
Ernst Strasser: EU refugee camps in Ukraine
PRO ASYL requests of members of the Bundestag: Counter Schily’s plans

“The Interior Ministers of Germany and Austria have significantly watered down European protection standards and brought them to an absolute minimum over the last years.

Now Otto Schily and Ernst Strasser want to completely dismantle the individual asylum law in the enlarged European Union,” says Karl Kopp, Director for European Affairs at PRO ASYL. Interior Minister Otto Schily adheres rigidly to his idea to dislocate European asylum procedures to North African states. Inspired by Schily’s plan, Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser suggested last week to build a EU reception camp in Ukraine for refugees and asylum seekers from Chechnya.

“What seems like an amok run in asylum politics on the first sight is a well calculated attempt to abolish the individual right to asylum in Europe,” states Kopp. The individual refugee’s right shall be turned into an act of mercy by the state.

Both Interior Ministers push forward the outsourcing of European refugee protection without taking into account any of the existing international protection agreements and particularly without any consideration of the human rights situation in the planned “European outposts” in North Africa and Ukraine.

One look at the situation in Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria shows which dangers the persons seeking protection would face. These states are still countries of origin. Libya for example: Hundreds of oppositionals and critics to the Gaddafi regime have “disappeared”, were tortured or executed. Basic rights are limited. The death penalty is imposed for a large number of minor offences.

Libya has not ratified the Geneva Refugee Convention and is extensively infringing international protection principals. In Ukraine, torture and mistreatment are still widely spread, particularly by police officials during arrests and interrogations. Detention conditions do not meet international minimum standards.

In the Recommendation 1589 (2003) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Freedom of expression in the media in Europe, Ukraine is mentioned as a negative example. Violence has remained a tool for intimidating journalists.

The German Minister as well as his Austrian colleague plan to present their “asylum initiatives” in the Council for Justice and Interior soon. In the run-up to the meeting of EU ministers on 30 September 2004,

PRO ASYL pleads to politicians of all parliamentary parties to counter Schily’s plans: “Engage yourself for a common asylum system on the European level that at least grants every person seeking protection in the EU and at its outer borders a fair asylum procedure in one of the member states,” Kopp concludes.