"FAIR, HUMANE, INTELLIGIBLE": MINISTER EINEM PROPOSES REFORM OF FOREIGNER LAW<
Last May, Austria's new Interior Minister, Caspar Einem, successfully resisted a powerful right-wing campaign aimed at forcing his resignation. No sooner had the Minister ridden out this political storm than he promised to present proposals for a thorough reform of Austria's ultra-restrictive foreigner and asylum legislation, before the end of the year (see FECL No.34: "The entry of Interior Minister Caspar Einem: Austria on the eve of change?").
Since then, the Minister has fulfilled his promise. On 22 September, he presented his "Integration Package 95" of proposals for a reform of the foreigner law. The package amounts to an unprecedented challenge to Jörg Haider's far right "Freedom movement" and a strong coalition of law-and-order and anti-immigration hard-liners.
According to Minister Einem, the draft proposals aim at making foreigner and asylum legislation "fair, humane, and intelligible". The main objective of the package is to limit as much as possible what the Interior Minister calls "the socially devastating consequences of illegality". Consequently, his proposals mainly aim at making it easier for foreigners, and in particular asylum seekers, to comply with the law, rather than forcing them into illegality by restrictive and discriminatory rules.
Right of residence strengthened
Failure of foreigners to meet set terms in procedures for the renewal of their residence permits shall no longer entail the loss of the right of residence, but merely fines. The separate proof of "decent housing" according to average regional standards shall no longer be a prerequisite for obtaining residence permit. "Inadequate housing should not be viewed as a problem of foreigners only", the Minister explains, referring to this change.
Asylum law: Softened "third safe country" regulation
Under the present Austrian asylum law, asylum seekers may be sent back to any third country in which they could have sought protection on their way to Austria. Consequently, ever since the introduction of this regulation in June 1992, asylum seekers who entered Austria via a transit country had their applications turned down and were deported. This contributed to a massive drop of the number of recognised refugees in Austria in the last two years. The ultra-restric-tive practice was condemned, among others, by the UNHCR (see FECL No.24: "Austria no 'safe third country', UNHCR says").
Under the new rule proposed by Minister Einem, the asylum authorities would not only have to establish whether an applicant could have sought protection in a specific third country, but also whether he will have full access to an asylum examination procedure meeting the requirements of the Geneva Convention on Refugees, in the event of being sent back there. The safety of third safe countries shall be established in cooperation with the UNHCR, by way of ordinance.
The proposed change has more far-reaching implications than one would expect at the first glance. Indeed, Austria currently deems all its neighbour states to be safe, but experience shows that Central European neighbour states such as Hungary and the Czech Republic tend to, in turn, deport returnees from Austria, whom they view as illegal immigrants. This has led to an increasing number of "Refugees in Orbit" ending up in their country of origin.
Finally, asylum seekers shall be granted temporary stay pending a final decision on their application. Under the present law, asylum seekers could be deported after the first rejection of their application, even if they appealed the decision.
Facilitated integration
Mr Einem emphasises that he wishes to keep to a very restrictive immigration policy and that he is not in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Indeed, his proposals mainly concentrate on a speedier integration of foreigners already living in Austria. Among other things, foreigners shall have a right to a permanent residence permit after five years of legal stay in the country. The expulsion of foreigners born and brought up in Austria shall no longer be possible, "even if they commit offenses as teenagers, as Austrian youth do".
As far as new immigration is concerned, applications on family reunification grounds shall be given priority. Initially, the Interior Minister wishes to reduce the backlog of pending applications from recent years. Once this has happened, new applications will be handled according to the following rule: Either immigrants will not be granted residence permit at all, or the permits shall automatically include their family.
If things go according to the Interior Minister's time table, the proposed changes should enter into force on 1 January 1996. However, he has still some way to go. First, the package will be considered by the parliamentary Home Affairs committee. Then, it will be presented to the Nationalrat (the Parliament).
First negative reactions to Mr Einem's package seem to indicate, that the Interior Minister is heading for a hard battle. The ÖVP, the conservative Christian Democrat junior partner in Chancellor Franz Vranitzky's coalition government, is showing scepticism about the proposed changes. An ÖVP MP said the proposals open the way to "abuse" by foreigners, and accused Mr Einem of showing a "lack of understanding for the fears of the Austrians", and the leader of the "Freedom Movement", Jörg Haider, announced "resistance". As for the Greens, they have shown disappointment with the package which they view as too moderate.
Sources: Wiener Zeitung, 23.9.95, 26.9.95; Profil, 25.9.95.Comment
Advocates of more open immigration and asylum policies in Austria are pointing to the limited scope of Mr Einem's package. Some tend to believe that the Minister has already given in to a strong anti-foreigner and "security" lobby comprising Haider's far right populists, the ÖVP, parts of Mr. Einem's own party, the SPÖ, and a powerful faction of senior officials within his own Ministry.
However, this is not the time for hasty and over-emotional conclusions.
At a first glance, it is true, Mr. Einem's "Integration Package 95" looks more like a haphazard compilation of corrective measures aimed at repairing obvious "technical" deficiencies of the present law, rather than at a wholesale reform of an asylum and immigration policy that many believe is fundamentally inhumane.
But Caspar Einem's proposals must be considered within the general political context not only in Austria, but in Western Europe as a whole.
If adopted, the changes will strengthen immigrants' and refugees' rights in Austria at a time where literally all other European countries are introducing ever more restrictive and discriminatory legislation. Everywhere, anti-immigration and law-and-order hardliners are increasingly dictating the political agenda. Opposition forces have shown themselves unable so far even to propose an alternative policy project. Instead they have concentrated on defensive tactics consisting mainly in "accepting the bad to prevent the worse".
Caspar Einem's "Integration Package" is more than that. All over Europe, governments are perceiving "undesirable" foreigners as a security risk and thus pressing them into illegality. "We have not succeeded in calming down public fears that way", Minister Einem notes, and he comes with a radically different approach. In his view, the genuine security risk consists not in the foreigners, but in policies of exclusion and denial of rights forcing them into illegality. Thus, Interior Minister Einem's proposals represent a perhaps small, but crucial step towards addressing the problem of asylum and immigration from a social rather than a policing angle.
By presenting his proposals, despite formidable resistance both from politicians and from his own civil servants, Einem is the first senior politician for years who dares to openly challenge Jörg Haider and his "Freedom movement". "All of a sudden, the chief of the Freedom movement is confronted with a situation he is not used to - that at least one man in the [SPÖ/ ÖVP] coalition is not running after him, but doing what he feels is right himself", Hubertus Czernin writes in the Vienna magazine, Profil . "Einem's foreigner law package can therefore be perceived as the beginning of an assault on this country's political hegemony.", the columnist concludes.
Indeed, Caspar Einem has launched a political offensive. Whether it will succeed or not will depend of the support liberal and human rights groups circles will give its initial phase - the "Integration package 95". This is true not only for Austria, but for the whole of Europe.
The Austrian Interior Minister is challenging the European Union's policy on immigration and asylum. He deserves international attention and support.
N.B.
Quotes from: Der Kontra-Minister, by Hubertus Czernin, in Profil No.39, 25.9.95.