POPULATION: Europe Alarmist on Refugee Question, Says UN

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 31 2002 (IPS) - The United Nations refugee agency issued a statement Friday expressing concern about the current “over- heated” debate in Europe on asylum-seekers, and suggests that it could have dangerous consequences for foreigners seeking help in the region.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published figures on the refugees arriving in the European Union (EU) in the last 10 years that show a sharp decline in the total last year with respect to the number recorded in 1992.

The report shows that the totals are quite low in some countries, particularly the ones that are most outspoken – such as Spain and Britain – in their support for drastic restrictions on the number of refugees to be accepted.

In contrast, developing countries are the leading receivers of refugees, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, or, in the cases of Iran and Pakistan, millions, stated Rupert Colville, UNHCR spokesman.

The number of people protected under the UNHCR mandate worldwide is nearly 22 million, distributed among Asia, where there are 8.5 million asylum-seekers, Africa (6.1 million), Europe (5.6 million), North America (one million), Latin America and the Caribbean (600,000), and in Oceania (76,000).

The UN agency’s data includes the number of asylum requests received in 30 industrialised countries, which include all Central and Western European countries.

“The numbers peaked in the early 1990s, when two major wars were taking place in Croatia and Bosnia. The numbers were more than halved in the mid-1990s, before rising again at the end of the decade, largely because of the Kosovo crisis,” says the report.

But the totals have remained quite stable since, at 350,000 to 400,000 asylum requests per year.

“If you look at these statistics, you see very little support for the idea prevalent in several European countries: that they are being deluged by fraudulent asylum seekers,” Colville said.

One commonly hears the charge that the vast majority of asylum requests are “bogus”, but the UNHRC spokesman stressed, “These statements are themselves highly inaccurate and misleading.”

He recognised that difficulties arise in managing immigration and integrating foreigners, but said, “It is wrong to paint the asylum seekers – and the large numbers of very deserving refugees among them – as the main element of the problem.”

The UN agency reportedly is concerned about the hostile edge that the refugee debate in Europe has acquired recently.

Colville mentioned the negotiations begun this week by the countries of the EU to establish strict border controls aimed at preventing immigrants from entering the bloc and mitigating the flow of refugees.

In this context, the British government announced that it is considering an initiative to allow the immediate deportation of asylum-seekers whose claims have been ruled patently unfounded.

Spain’s Prime Minister José María Aznar, one of the champions of the hard-line approach to border control, says such measures would allow the authorities “to distinguish legal from illegal immigration.”

The final decision on the EU’s common policy will be taken at the meeting of the Council of Europe, slated for Jun 21-22 in Seville, Spain.

The turn-around in the immigration policy debate in several EU countries, say political analysts, is related to the outcomes of the recent elections in Italy, Denmark and Portugal, where political parties opposed to immigration gained force

But the most alarming results – in terms of refugee and immigrant rights – were those of France and the Netherlands. In the former, the candidate of the far right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his xenophobic discourse, made it to the run-off in the presidential elections, though he lost to conservative candidate Jacques Chirac.

In the Netherlands, the supporters of Pim Fortyun, an anti- immigrant and anti-Muslim political leader who was assassinated last month, was able to lift his party’s standing so that it is now second only to the powerful Christian Democrats.

“If this results in rushed policy-and law-making, it could have very dangerous results for future refugees, either in terms of gaining access to Europe at all, or in getting a fair hearing and decent treatment once they are here,” said Colville.