Immigration in Europe - HumanitarianNet - Universidad de Deusto

Building a rights based asylum system for Europe:a UNHCR perspectiveBelén García de VinuesaThe Amsterdam Treaty, with the EU Member States ’ agreement torelinquish their sovereign right to pursue national policies in the fieldsof asylum and immigration, represents the most significant step towardsthe building of a common EU asylum system. The Member States thereby«agreed to agree» on the principles of who is to receive protection,what it entails, where and how it is to be implemented. Four out of thefive years of the Amsterdam timeframe have gone by, and threeinstruments have been adopted: the Council Decision creating a EuropeanRefugee Fund; the Directive on Temporary Protection; and the Directivesetting minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers. Politicalagreement has been reached on one further instrument: the Regulationreplacing the Dublin Convention for determining the State responsible forexamining an application for asylum. However, most of those questionsI have just mentioned on the common asylum system remain unanswered.If we take a close look at the context in which a common EU asylumsystem is emerging, we cannot ignore that it is not the best of timesfor the birth of a regional asylum system to be taken as a model bymany, if not all, regions in the world. The portrait that many have of arefugee —often close to a caricature— no longer corresponds to theearlier image of a political opponent to a communist regime received ina Western State. Nor does it even correspond to the victims runningaway from ethnic cleansing shown by the terrible images on the CNN.The refugee who currently knocks at our doors is a peasant milked by aguerrilla army who cannot pay any longer because he or she is ruined,or a woman who fears genital mutilation and in some cases is forcedinto prostitution upon arrival in our country. It is indeed a new profileof refugees, and some say that such persons are not real refugees,although they acknowledge that they might be in need of protection.