Karamanou (PSE). – (EL) Mr President, Commissioner, we all know
that the events of September 11 and the war on terrorism are being used as an
excuse in several Member States of the European Union to block progress on an
integrated European asylum policy. The number of asylum seekers in the European
Union fell by nearly two-thirds over the first 4 months of 2002, compared with
the same period last year, having almost doubled over ten years. In Greece,
which is usually generous towards asylum seekers, only 59 out of 2,810
applicants were granted asylum in the first half of 2002. This is a dramatic
fall in comparison with 2001, when almost ten times as many applications were
granted.
At the same time,
according to statistics from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, most mass
movements of refugees are offered refuge by neighbouring, equally poor
countries; fewer are opting to flee to the West, that is when they manage to
get here at all. For example, out of four million Afghan refugees, only 38,600
asylum applications were filed in the Union last year, i.e. only one Afghan in
a thousand asked for protection from the European Union; most fled to neighbouring
countries. These statistics speak for themselves and claims that waves of
refugees are supposedly threatening Europe and that we should pull up the
drawbridge are groundless.
At the same time,
of course, xenophobia in the European Union is increasing, while the debate has
lost sight of what it is that forces these people to travel so far from home in
a bid to escape the endless violation of human rights in their own countries.
It is not just that strict controls do nothing to prevent asylum seekers from
heading for Europe; they encourage many to try and enter illegally, creating
work for gangs of smugglers. And as a result, we end up counting corpses on our
borders and coastlines and trying to deal with new forms of slavery and
exploitation. We agree with the open method of coordination, Commissioner, but
it is hardly an integrated solution to the problem and we trust that we shall
have an integrated policy by the end of 2003.