Brussels: We'll halt Howard's curb on migrants
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
By David Rennie in Brussels and George Jones
25/01/2005
The European Commission threatened last night to block Michael Howard's
programme of tough immigration controls if the Tories win the election.
These would include setting an annual limit on the number of asylum seekers.
While Mr Howard faced criticism at home from refugee and race groups,
Brussels officials said that directives already signed by the Government
would prevent the Tories from adopting a go-it-alone policy on immigration.
A qualifications directive would stop them from withdrawing from the 1951
United Nations convention on refugees, which prevents Britain from taking
immediate action to deport asylum seekers whose claims are not genuine.
Europe's intervention in what has become a major issue in the election
campaign took Westminster aback. MPs and officials were unaware of how much
national sovereignty on immigration and asylum had been transferred to
Brussels.
The Conservative leadership responded by saying that a Tory government would
immediately opt out of the new rules. If that were blocked, it would insist
on renegotiation to allow Britain to determine its own asylum and
immigration policies.
Mr Howard had earlier denied that he was "playing the race card" by putting
proposals for strict controls on immigration at the heart of the Tory
campaign.
He said that immigration was out of control and that the country could not
absorb the "millions" more who wanted to come here. Firm but fair controls
were essential for good community relations and national security.
A Tory government would set an annual limit to immigration, including a
quota for asylum seekers. It would introduce legislation to give the home
secretary power to order the removal of bogus asylum seekers.
Within hours the European Commission said that Mr Howard was too late.
The qualifications directive establishes a binding EU definition of who is a
refugee. It has been adopted by Britain and other EU governments and comes
into full force in September next year, regardless of who wins the election
expected in May.
Its definitions are drawn from the UN convention but expand on and reinforce
the rather vague clauses of the 1951 treaty. It offers additional protection
to asylum seekers fleeing civil wars and lifts its definitions for such
cases wholesale from the European convention on human rights.
Friso Roscam Abbing, the chief spokesman for the EU justice commissioner,
Franco Frattini, said that in 1997 Britain had negotiated a sweeping opt-out
on questions of immigration. But in recent years, as the EU drew up a common
asylum policy, the Government explicitly opted into the negotations. It had
signed every directive to date.
"There is nothing in these protocols that allows a British government to opt
back out again," Mr Roscam Abbing said. "So Britain is bound by them." Nor
would a Conservative government be able to set quotas for the number of
refugees accepted each year.
"Say they set a quota of 10,000 a year," Mr Roscam Abbing said. "Well, the
10,001st case could say to a British judge, `Your government is bound by EU
rules and is not at liberty not to consider my claim,' "
A rolling wave of protocols and directives - one in force, one coming next
month, a third next year and a fourth in 2007 - have overridden national
laws on where governments keep asylum seekers, how they treat them, and how
many appeals they are allowed.
If a future British government were to enact laws that contravened EU
regulations, the commission would begin "infringement proceedings". Those
would be followed, if resistance continued, by legal action in the European
Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
When The Telegraph told David Davis, the shadow home secretary, he said: "We
had a pretty good idea we would have to renegotiate because the Blair
Government has been opting into more EU asylum policies."
Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said
that Mr Howard's announcement left the way open for racists to put the
"worst construction" on his message.
--
Jim
http://www.antimulticulture.0catch.com
Union Against Multi-Culty
"Abolish Multiculturalism and String Up The Traitors!" |