NEWS RELEASE
From the office of the Green MEPs

19 June, 2003

MEP CALLS FOR DEPORTATION HALT AT HOME OFFICE VIGIL

- JEAN SUPPORTS INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE DAY DEMO

LONDON MEP Jean Lambert will tonight call for an immediate halt to deportation of asylum seekers at a vigil outside the Home Office to mark International Refugee Day.

The capital's Green Euro-MP will tell demonstrators at the National Association against Racism-organised vigil that no asylum seekers should be 'returned' until EU leaders have agreed minimum standards for deciding asylum claims - and the UK agrees to adopt them.

Mrs Lambert, a member of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee whose London constituency contains the UK's highest density of asylum seekers, said: "It is contemptible that David Blunkett and his European counterparts have failed to reach agreement on minimum standards for asylum seekers.

"There should be a moratorium on further efforts to expel and repatriate asylum-seekers until the Council of Ministers manages to think positively and make progress on the minimum standards and definitions directive. If they can't even decide who is entitled to stay, then they shouldn't be finalising plans on how to throw them out."

Mrs Lambert also slammed Tony Blair's plans to export the refugee problem to camps outside the EU.

She commented: "This plan threatens the existing national and international protection of refugees. Member states need to create common high standards for the asylum and refugee policy, which are in line with the principles of the Geneva Convention.

"If we cannot make decisions on how to deal with immigration and asylum-seekers within Europe, we shouldn't be trying to export the problem."


ENDS

For more information please contact Ben Duncan on 020 7407 6280, 07973 823358 or at press@greenmeps.org.uk