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• Regional Protection Areas and Asylum Processing Centres

• Terror: Eine Gewoltlose Antwort

The plan proposed that “Regional Protection Areas” should be set up outside the EU territory where asylum seekers could lodge their claim. Once an asylum seeker’s identity had been established s/he could be sent to a “regional protection area” pending the return of stability in their home country. Asylum seekers would be sent there without prior determination of the merits of their protection claim.

Access to a “regional protection area” would be open to any asylum seeker wanting to seek protection there. They would therefore not have to pay traffickers large fees to be taken to Western Europe. Those accepted as refugees by the UNHCR would then wait until a country of reception can be found, reception being a shared responsibility between EU Member States.

For refugees to have to wait for the “return of stability in the home country” or for an EU Member State to accept responsibility for them could lead to very long waiting periods. It is possible that traffickers in human beings and other criminals could infiltrate these “regional protection areas” as has happened in other refugee camps.

It is said that the “regional protection areas” must offer sufficient security and protection to satisfy the requirements of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits inhuman and/or degrading treatment. As far as possible education and employment should be made available. This does not seem to be easily done for asylum seekers and refugees living in western society.How, I wonder could this be done in a special protection area?

The geographical allocation of certain groups could be an issue. Kurdish asylum seekers could be given temporary protection in Turkey, Iran or Iraq, Somalis from the south could be sent to the north and Algerians could be offered a safe home in Morocco. Would “regional protection areas” be situated only in countries with an acceptable record on the rule of law and human rights? Could they be located in areas that have very poor economies themselves? And what would be the effect of this? There is no mention of the special protection needs for women and unaccompanied minors. The plans are silent on what is to happen to rejected asylum seekers – are they to be expelled from the transit processing centre or from the territory? The UK plan, announced in May 2003, appears to have generated interest from other countries (the Netherlands, Denmark) with whom the UK has been in dialogue about this, and from countries interested in providing sites (not specified). The UK Government is of the view that the plan conforms to the Geneva Convention, as this does not oblige a country to keep an asylum seeker on its territory while a claim is being processed.

The Danish Government has also developed a proposal of its own, which comes very close to the Australian approach, a country which initially refused to allow Afghan boat refugees to enter harbour and sent them to Nauru and Papua New Guinea to have their claims processed.

Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK held a meeting on transit centres in April 2003, with government officials from Australia and the USA, two countries which already process asylum claims outside their territory, and representatives of UNHCR. Commenting on the British proposals, UNHCR Europe said that the proposed “transit processing centres” should be limited to “manifestly unfounded”claims.

The UNHCR has its own proposals in this context. Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, introduced his “Convention Plus” initiative to the European Union Justice and Home Affairs Council addressing the issue of burden and responsibility sharing amongst states. He suggested that European Union Member States pool their processing and reception resources in closed reception centres for those considered economic migrants, where claims are processed by EU teams and appeals are simplified and undertaken with UNHCR participation. There could also be targetting of development assistance to countries hosting large refugee populations over protracted periods, according to a concept called “Development Assistance for Refugees”(DAR). This would bring together an integrated approach to repatriation, reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and the DLI initiative (“Development Through Local Integration”).

Anita Wuyts

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· Was ist unsere Reaktion auf den ‚Krieg gegen Terror’ der nach dem 11. September 2001 zum Tagesthema wurde; warum wurde dieses Ereignis zur Ursache dieser Thematik und nicht viele andere frühere Terrorangriffe? Wie reagieren verschiedene Glaubensgemeinschaften darauf? Was für Folgen hat das für pluralistische Gesellschaften?

· Die Tatsache des Terrorismus bedarf einer Antwort für diejenigen, die gewaltlos handeln wollen und dennoch klar darüber sind, daß wir uns überlegen müssen, wie wir mit dieser Tatsache leben können.

· ‚Wenn wir uns dazu geführt fühlen uns dem Zeitgeist entgegenzusetzen, wie Generationen von Freunden es vor uns getan haben, dann müssen wir bereit sein, „unpopulären“ Positionen in einfachen Worten laut und klar Stimme zu geben.’ Eine Aufforderung von unserem dänischen Freundes Michael Larsen.

Wir werden also versuchen die folgenden Ziele zu erreichen:

· Freunde und andere zu Diskussionen über den Krieg gegen Terror und dessen Auswirkungen auf die internationale Sicherheitspolitik zusammenzubringen.

· Freunde und andere zu Diskussionen über ihrer eigenen Reaktionen auf das Terror- und Gewaltrisiko und deren Behandlung in den Medien zusammenzubringen und zu erforschen wie man darauf gewaltfrei eingehen könnte.

· Die Ergebnisse dieser Dialoge von verschiedenen Orten in Europa zusammenziehen und internationalen Institutionen, nationalen Regierungen, internationalen Medien und die Öffentlichkeit auf diese Ergebnisse aufmerksam zu machen.

Die wesentlichen Phasen der Projektentwicklung sind Finanzierung, Vorbereitung von Materialien und Identifizierung von interessierten Quäkergruppen in Europa,.

Die wesentlichen Phasen des Projektes sind Einführungsseminare, Vorbereitung der Materialien, die Diskussionsphase mit ca. 5 bis 6 Treffen der örtlichen Diskussionsgruppen, ein Seminar um die Ergebnisse der Diskussionen zusammen und daraus Schlüße zu ziehen, die Erstellungen eines Projektberichtes und eine Konferenz.

Dieses Projekt hängt völlig davon ab, daß QCEA genügend Finanzmittel von Stiftungen und anderen möglichen Quellen (Regierungen, z.B.) identifiziert und bekommt um die nicht unerheblichen Kosten eines solchen Projektes zu decken.

Wir bitten Freunde in Europa mit uns in Kontakt zu tretten um uns mitzuteilen

· Ob Ihr daran interessiert seit Euch an diesem Projekt als örtliche Gruppe zu beteiligen (geht davon aus daß dies nicht vor 2004 geschehen wird).

· Ob Ihr Materialien (Artikel, Bücher oder andere Veröffentlichungen) habt die als Grundlagen für diese Diskussionen nützlich sein könnten.

· Ob Ihr etwas über mögliche Quellen für finanzielle Mittel für dieses Projekt wißt.

Bitte schreibt an Martina Weitsch, QCEA, mweitsch@qcea.org. This article will appear in next month’s edition of Around Europe in English

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Trade policy is only one small part of the arsenal of policy instruments that developing countries need to construct an effective development agenda. Increasingly, many areas only slightly related to trade, are being brought under the mandate of the WTO [World Trade Organisation], which has important implications for the ability of developing countries to formulate their own development strategies freely.

It is clear that many developing countries do need the foreign capital that might come from trade and foreign investment; however what gives these their development value is the extent to which that investment and capital is directed towards domestic sectors that would eventually be competitive within the world economy.

The question that arises is: does liberalisation of trade and the other areas under the WTO’s mandate and the competition on the world market that this implies, allow the development of specific sectors where the developing countries have the potential to be competitive in the world economy?

It could do if developing country governments are allowed to use performance requirements on foreign investors and protect some of their fledgling sectors to ensure that they are able to develop to maturity before being subject to intense competition on the world markets. The performance requirements developing countries could implement include tax incentives, targeted subsidies, or screening mechanisms that ensure foreign investments benefit the national economy. In tariff terms, developing countries could use higher tariffs to protect specific sectors as they develop and then allow them to compete on the world market, as many now developed countries did at earlier stages of their development.

Whereas GATT [The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs - the predecessor to the WTO] only dealt with trade in goods, the WTO has expanded and continues to expand into areas that are less and less closely related to trade; areas that do have increasingly worrying implications for development policy however. Heated discussion is taking place on whether the “new issues” will be placed within the WTO’s negotiations.

The “new issues” cover the areas of competition regulation, investment regulation, government procurement, and trade facilitation [the documents and procedures at borders]. Taking the example of investment, it is possible to see how WTO rules on these areas have the potential to give less and less policy space to developing country governments. Developing country governments may wish to give particular incentives such as tax breaks to domestic companies that invest in training, which would break the National Treatment [foreign companies have to be treated the same as domestic ones] aspect of WTO rules. They would be able to submit a limitation for this under the positive list approach, where each country offers up sectors of its economy. However because the positive list approach would form part of the single undertaking, [where all WTO negotiations are decided as one] developing countries are likely to come under heavy pressure in each round of negotiations to take back such limitations or to “compensate” the developed countries by giving them advantages in other areas of the single undertaking. In this way, it is probable that the inclusion in the WTO of investment would seriously undermine the policy space for development. It is for this reason that the EU should not be pushing for the “new issues” to be included in the WTO mandate.

Owen Espley

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In March 2000, the Heads of State of the EU Member States meeting in Lisbon agreed to promote a high quality, competitive European economy and society, based on ‘more and better jobs’, the fight against poverty and social exclusion and the promotion of life-long learning and the e-economy. Fundamentally in a European Union heavily weighted towards economic and market integration, the member states overtly committed themselves for the first time to ensure that European social integration would be pursued with equivalent vigour to economic integration. Building on previous experience in the field of employment policy, the Heads of State agreed to develop a new form of policy-making – the so-called open method of coordination (OMC) – based on national policy coordination through European common guidelines and cross-national learning rather than the development of European legislation. It was intended that the elaboration of annual or biennial national action plans, on issues such as employment, social inclusion, vocational training and pensions, would involve a broader group of people and organizations at local, national and European levels.

Despite some advances, the key targets on employment are proving difficult to reach especially under the current economic conditions, while poverty levels remain unacceptable. The Commission stressed that the quality of jobs (in terms of wages, working time and working conditions) is crucial if poverty and social inclusion are to be fully addressed successfully.

Moreover, much more needs to be done if the ambition to involve a broader sweep of society in the policy-making process at all levels is to be successful. While there are differences between countries, recent evaluations indicate that national action plans are most commonly drafted without the consultation of NGOs and the social partners (i.e. employers’ associations and trade unions). The lack of information to, never mind participation of, citizens is very worrying in a period in which changes in national social policy and welfare states are the cause of heated debate and civil protest in many European countries.

The development of European policies on such crucial issues must be based on participatory democracy at all levels and founded on principles of social and economic justice, if a modern and sustainable welfare future is to be attained.

For more information: http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social.htm

Judith Kirton-Darling, Assistant Clerk of QCEA

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