The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) discuss the state of play of the asylum files, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

exchange of views

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

SIPPEL, Birgit (S&D, DE)

asylum procedures in the EU (T)

HOHLMEIER, Monika (EPP, DE)

GUILLAUME, Sylvie (S&D, FR)

BUSUTTIL, Simon (EPP, MT)

FLAUTRE, Hélène (Greens/EFA, FR)

International protection - State of play of the asylum files: extracts from the exchange of views

SOUNDBITE (French), Sylvie GUILLAUME (S&amp;D, FR), rapporteur, Despite the harmonisation measures that were adopted 10 years ago in Asylum policy, major divergences exist between MS as regards the conditions for asylum seeker and the quality of their procedures and in particular in terms of the decisions which are taken. Certain figures speak for themselves, just to give you an example, the percentage of positive decisions taken in MS in 2009 vary from 65 percent to minus or below 1 percent.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sylvie GUILLAUME (S&amp;D, FR), rapporteur, We need to have major overhaul of the procedure directive because it seems for many that it just a list of the worst National practices. And this overhaul is necessary to have better guaranties European level. So the recast proposal of the COM is very ambitious, it talks about the idea that the previous text comes up with a minimalist approach but this hasn't enabled a sufficient amount of harmonisation. The quality and effectiveness of the decision making procedure is also lacking as is the protection for people in the decision process.

SOUNDBITE (French), H&#233;l&#232;ne FLAUTRE (Greens/EFA, FR), It is absolutely necessary that the Council gets involved on the work on this directive. It would be wrong to speak of European Common asylum approach; we need to include these proposals into the directive to establish a real trustful decisive system in the EU.

SOUNDBITE (German), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), I think that the question of people going underground is also a very difficult issue. The COM document says that if someone goes underground and becomes illegal that the procedure does not come to end and that that someone underground do still have a right for a procedure and authorities can not evoke this as a reason to refusing them an application. I think this very problematic aspect.

SOUNDBITE (English), Simon BUSUTTIL (EPP, MT), English: Simon Busuttil (PPE, MT):I think our 1st concern should be to help these MS to get in line with the standards we have today, it is already extremely difficult for them. We have left them largely on their own to deal with this and we are now moving the goal posts. This makes it almost impossible for them to do so.

SOUNDBITE (German), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), Obviously the situation in different MS varies greatly but this does preclude common standards, inspect that is an argument in favour of ensuring that there is solidarity established between the MS.

SOUNDBITE (German), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), In the EU we are always very quick to make Human rights an issue on International level and I think therefore that we should not observe so easily of the obligation to respect Human Rights, we need to ensure that we offer protection.