Interview with Green Party MEP Jean Lambert on a Common European Immigration and Asylum Policy

Questions:

1. As a member on the Civil Liberties Committee of the European parliament you have been involved in issues and talks about EU immigration and asylum policies. The recent agreement on a European constitution has now revived the efforts towards a common European Immigration and Asylum policy, the elements of which were first set out at the 1999 European Council meeting in Tampere. What, in your opinion, will be the challenges of that policy for Europe especially after it enlargement?

JEAN LAMBERT: We have already seen a number of challenges where it's obvious that member states have very different interpretations of what the Geneva Convention and later Protocols mean. There is nervousness about having a Common Immigration Policy because everyone seems to think that that means lots of people moving, whereas history shows us that this is not true. I think with enlargement, as well, some of the challenges there are going to be for new member states that have no history of asylum policy or immigration policy. They have only put it in place because they need to become members of the European Union. So there is an issue there about how we work with those member states for them to take up better practice - not current practice. Another big issue is border control - how they need to make sure that borders are as tight as possible. They will have to deal with such questions as how many people are going to want to move to those countries in a way which they couldn't do when they were part of the Soviet bloc.

2. My second question is very much related to that. The 25 members of the EU differ considerably in terms of their institutional, political and social histories and experiences of migration and asylum. For example, mainly within the last decade, Greece has turned from an emigration to an immigration country, with an increasing number of asylum seekers and refugees from Iraq, Turkey and Iran settling, or seeking temporary refuge there. How do you think a Common European Asylum policy will affect 'new immigration' countries like Greece?

JEAN LAMBERT: One of the things is going to be how much those member states which do have experience of considerable immigration can actually use that experience positively to work with the source countries. Another challenge is going to be how prepared the European Union is to really continue its work on policies that deal with discrimination and anti-racism. Although there is legislation already established and implemented on anti-discrimination in the work place on grounds of race and ethnic origin, it is absolutely clear that there are a number of countries which haven't yet implemented that into national law, let alone set up internal monitoring bodies required. So, I think a very big question is how much energy is really going to be invested in that or whether we are going to let talk of security get in the way of the positive work needed on anti-discrimination. It has been interesting watching some of the Greek initiatives on immigration issues and some of the changes they have already made there, with the previous government. I don't know what the new government will be like on that. But it seems to me that in terms of recognition in law of equality and issues about citizenship, some of those new measures have been very interesting.

3. Your answer brings me to my third question about those member states with a long history and tradition of immigration and asylum laws like the UK. Do you believe that these countries will dominate in the process of building a legal framework for the EU policy on asylum? If so, what kind of repercussions would that have on the concept of the European constitution itself?

JEAN LAMBERT: It is clear that the UK has had a considerable impact. I think in terms of issues around integration and equality, the idea of having an 'equality body' and 'equality commission', whose job it is to look at implementation has come very much from the British tradition of working on race relations, gender equality and so on. My bigger concern now is in terms of asylum. There was a time when I would have said that UK's position on asylum policy would have been very positive because of the tradition we had. There was a wide definition of who was entitled to refugee status which has been upheld, and indeed expanded, to some extent by the British courts. Yet when you then look at what successive governments, in particular this one have now done, I think it has really developed an asylum policy based on deterrence. The influence that this has now had on asylum policy in the European Union has been, I think, very damaging. There is an argument about why that is and partly it does lead to issues about how the decisions are reached which at the moment is unanimity in Council. In a way this can be positive: countries like Sweden (which have a very much more positive policy) are able to block the worst policies. Yet on the other side - if people want common agreement, a country that really sticks to a hardline and really bargains has a very strong position. If the UK says 'no', then there is no agreement. If the other countries want agreement, well that then becomes a problem. So unanimity can give additional strength to worst practice. The Constitution is going to qualified majority voting and co-decision with Parliament. This would at least give greater opportunity for that sort of bargaining to be public in a way in which it isn't at the moment. The majority then needed in Parliament might be problematic. If you don't do a good job working with those new members to demonstrate to them how important the question of asylum policy is, at least it is then out in the open and there are more opportunities for intervention: for NGOs, asylum seekers and refugees speaking about their own experience, to make the point. I don't think it is a worse policy than what we have got on the Reception Directive right now.

4. Talking about the European constitution and, to put it in more general terms, about European law, there is often confusion or ignorance on the part of the public as to the practice of European law and, therefore its impact on the reality and quality of people's lives. To what extent, do you think, a common European Asylum policy will influence, or change the social and cultural profile and climate of European countries and how? How could it practically alleviate the harsh reality asylum seekers have to face, and will it determine migration trends?

JEAN LAMBERT: No, I don't think a common Asylum policy will determine migration trends. I think that increasingly the evidence is that people seeking asylum will still make every effort to reach safety, whereas 2 or 3 years ago there was a whole debate which confused people coming for economic reasons rather than coming because they needed protection from persecution. There is recent research which shows that that actually was a political confusion rather than a practical one. There wasn't a big overlap between these particular groups and I wish the world press would not muddle things up, given that they created a lot of these myths in the first place. In terms of what it actually means, how people will perceive it, I think one of the dangers will be that countries that want to reduce their current provision will be able to blame it on the European Union. One of the big regrets from those of us working on this is that a lot of the common policy that is coming in doesn't have a sort of 'stand-still' clause. Member states shouldn't be able to offer worse provision than they currently are - yet these new Directives actually allow them to do so as they have no 'stand-still' clause. There is nothing to stop countries having higher standards if they want and that's something which organizations involved ought to make clear.

In terms of what it will do to change everyday reality, I think that will depend on which country you are in. We are waiting to see the text on the Procedures Directive. The British have put in Section 55 provision [Section 55(1) of the 2002 Immigration Act prevents the National Asylum Support Service from providing asylum support unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that an applicant's claim for asylum was made as soon as reasonably practicable after his arrival in the UK] - the view that if the welfare case is rejected you can remove support. I think this is a real disaster. We need to see what we can do to test this through the Courts and I think that there will be a lot of NGO's that will be looking to do that. For some countries the Definitions Directive is possibly the one which have the biggest effect because there will be certain member states like Germany which have only ever recognized state persecution as grounds for refugee status. The new Directive from the European Union also recognizes non-state persecution. Therefore, it means that if you're coming from Somalia, you can argue persecution by war lords, in a German court, in a way in which you couldn't before. I think the most important thing, therefore, has been a widening of the definitions in certain member states, and I think that's positive.

5. How the anti-terrorism laws may influence the process of decision-making and agreement on a common European Asylum policy?

JEAN LAMBERT: I think there's already some evidence to say that the anti-terrorism laws have just added to the whole culture of refugee disposal and culture of disbelief. Before you have even opened your mouth, people are making decisions and looking to find ways to refuse you, rather than ways to accept you, and I think the anti-terrorism laws add to that. Because again this is one situation where there has been a lot of very, very deliberate confusion put in place by politicians and by the media to make it sound that if there's anybody arrested for suspected terrorist offences it's probably an asylum-seeker, or a refugee. Whereas, in fact, that's been a tiny number particularly in the UK, maybe it's a different case in France but not entirely. Where 'asylum-seeker' has become a term of abuse it has also been manipulated and become synonymous with 'terrorist'. All of which makes it much more difficult for individuals to get a positive decision and to live safely in whichever country they are seeking refuge.

I think the anti-terrorism laws are often quite potentially dangerous laws and, from what we've seen, not just in the UK. For example, if you have claimed asylum and your case is refused, but they won't send you back because your life might be in danger, they assess you to be a potential terrorist risk and you end up in limbo. You are either stuck in Belmarsh prison or a detention centre for months and months with no idea what is happening to your life and very little possibility of getting representation because effectively you are being detained under immigration laws.

6. Talking about the media, what do you think is the role of the media in raising public awareness around these issues? Could you give some examples from the British case?

JEAN LAMBERT: I think a lot of the media have been absolutely unspeakable in this. Take the Sun for example: There was a point in which the Sun was running an asylum watch hotline that if you as a member of the public came across any sort of issue of abuse of the system or disproportionate assistance to asylum-seekers or whatever, or asylum-seekers, refugees caught breaking the law and you rang so that you were effectively providing them with the story to keep their front pages going. Also, there has been a period when the Daily Mail had on a daily basis anti-refugee, or anti-asylum seekers, stories printed. Take the example of a guy who ran over and killed a young girl and he was driving without insurance, like a lot of drivers in the UK. But because he was an asylum-seeker that was the headline not the horror of uninsured drivers which is a generality and which they could have found in almost any court, and those would have been probably white British drivers. That wasn't the purpose of the story.

In the so-called middle-brow press, we had the provoking reported that - after May 1st - the UK would be swamped with 73 million benefit seeking immigrants from the newly acceded countries. But if you look at it the other way, those new Member States have opened up their assistance to 50 million British entitled to claim benefits. It is a reciprocal arrangement, and yet it was reported on the back of anti-Roma stories which came from the statement of one Conservative Member of Parliament about his particular part of the country in south-east Cambridgeshire. Yet there were huge headlines across the national press about how this was going to affect the whole of Britain. It is quite deliberate and willful distortion which, in the case of the Daily Mail, people read and said it echoes the coverage of the Jews trying to seek refuge from Hitler's Germany. A lot of the language is exactly the same, they've just changed the group. What is interesting is that a number of the papers running the stories are papers owned by foreigners. There is a real irony there.