'MINI-SUMMIT' OF FIVE INTERIOR MINISTERS IN AUSTRIA: CONTAINING REFUGEE INFLUXES
Ministers responsible for asylum from Austria, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland met in the Austrian mountain village of Gaschurn on 17 July to discuss new ways of preventing refugees from entering Western Europe. The little-publicised 'mini-summit' was convoked at short notice by Austrian Interior Minister Karl Schlögl, with a view to preventing a feared mass influx of refugees from Kosovo into Western Europe. Henceforth, the Ministers agreed, everything should be done to contain refugees in their "home regions". Swiss Minister of Justice and Police Arnold Koller's announcement that his country intended to seek Schengen membership was welcomed by the meeting.
The crisis in Kosovo was the immediate reason for the meeting of the five Interior Ministers. The Austrian government is fearing a new mass influx of refugees into the country, comparable to the mass arrivals during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This concern is shared by the other four countries represented at the Gaschurn meeting. German Interior Minister Manfred Kanther was unequivocal at the meeting: "We do not want any refugees from Kosovo - on no account". Germany already had a too large share of refugees, Mr Kanther argued, and this, he said, was "unbearable".
Consequently, the five Ministers agreed on the following items:
there will be no halt to the forcible return of Kosovo-Albanian asylum applicants;
no temporary stay will be granted to refugees from Kosovo;
Hungary continues to be considered a "safe third country" to which asylum seekers from Kosovo may be returned;
there is no need, for the time being, for any joint measures with regard to the reception of refugees from Kosovo.
In more general terms, the five Ministers unanimously held the view that refugees should be assisted in their home region, as near as possible to their home country. Austrian Interior Minister Schlögl said that, in applying this policy statement, the EU intended to set up "reception centres" for refugees from Kosovo in northern Albania and in Macedonia.
The actual objective of setting up these centres seems to consist in intercepting would-be asylum seekers before they reach EU territory. In an Opinion, the Vienna daily newspaper Der Standard labelled the so-called reception centres as "nothing other than detention camps".
Interior Minister Schlögl boasted that his government had already offered 5 million Austrian shillings for assistance measures in countries neighbouring the Yugoslav province of Kosovo and called for "compensatory solidarity" from other EU countries.
"Compensatory solidarity" is the new, less controversial term used by governments to describe what they earlier more bluntly called "burden sharing" - i.e. the "just" distribution of refugees and the costs of their reception between host countries. The five Ministers agreed that countries receiving particularly large numbers of refugees should be compensated through EU funds. In the event of further aggravation of the conflict in Kosovo, refugees are to be shared out among the different host countries according to a ratio that still remains to be defined.
While these and other possible mechanisms of burden sharing were discussed in Gaschurn, Mr Schlögl told the press that the specifics would have to be elaborated at a later stage. Countries of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the USA and Canada are to address the item at a conference on migration in Austria this autumn.
Interior Minister Schlögl, backed by his German colleague, once again insisted on the need for compulsory finger-printing in the planned Eurodac computer not only of all asylum applicants but also of all illegal immigrants. He said Austria, which is currently presiding the EU, was firmly determined to achieve this goal before the end of its presidency. "Asylum tourism exists - we must prevent it", Mr Schlögl stressed.
Switzerland seeks Schengen membership
The de facto integration of the non-EU country Switzerland into Schengen policy-making was the most substantial result achieved at the Gaschurn mini-summit.
The Swiss Minister of Justice and Police, Arnold Koller, made it clear that his country wanted to apply for membership in the Schengen group. Koller told his counterparts that Swiss integration into Schengen would take place in two phases:
The swift conclusion of bilateral agreements in the field of policing, immigration and border control with Switzerland's four neighbour countries, Germany, France, Austria and Italy (already under way).
On a medium-term basis, negotiation of full Schengen membership.
Koller said that in implementing phase 1, Switzerland would step up cooperation with the Schengen group, among others by adapting to the Schengen group's common visa policy. He also said that Switzerland has already applied for access to the Schengen Information System (SIS) pending Schengen membership. "Switzerland wants to participate in the EU security process", Mr Koller emphasised.
Two-faced Austrian Interior Minister
The agreement reached in Gaschurn, aiming at keeping away Kosovo-Albanian refugees from EU territory strikingly contrasts with policy statements made at home just ten days earlier by Austrian Interior Minister Schlögl. Responding to criticism of Austrian authorities' ultra-restrictive asylum practice vis-à-vis refugees from Kosovo, Mr Schlögl assured the Parliament that applications from asylum seekers from Kosovo would now be carefully examined and that Kosovo-Albanians would no longer be sent to Hungary.
As a matter of fact, in the first half of 1998, no more than 1,142 asylum seekers from Kosovo sought protection in Austria. Moreover, through the application of the "third safe country" principle, many of them were returned to Hungary without any examination of their claims. Deportations to Hungary have long been decried by Austrian human rights and asylum organisations who have pointed to what they regard as catastrophic and inhuman conditions, specifically in the Hungarian reception camp of Györ, where many asylum seekers returned by an EU country end up.
Following the Gaschurn meeting, a Green MP, Ms Teresija Stoisits, pointed to the fact that the conflict in Kosovo had resulted in some 150,000 displaced people, most of whom had not left their home region. Hinting at the Austrian practice of deporting unwanted refugees to Hungary, she asked the Interior Minister: "Where is Austria's compensatory solidarity vis-à-vis Hungary? Where is its compensatory solidarity towards Albania with regard to refugees from Kosovo? Can one talk of compensatory solidarity, when only 1,145 of a total of approximately 150,000 refugees flee to Austria and are then, in their great majority, sent back again to neighbouring countries, namely Hungary?"
Defending the restrictive policies decided in Gaschurn in an interview accorded Der Standard, Interior Minister Schlögl asserted that the majority of Kosovo-Albanians who came to Austria were "not from the crisis area" and must be considered economic migrants.
Stirring up opinion against refugees
Mr Schlögl expressed great satisfaction with the outcome of the mini-summit. He emphasised the fact that "for the first time" France had not objected to the idea of establishing a mechanism of burden sharing, and went on to say: "We have made a decisive step forward, that is, to link Switzerland to the Schengen Treaty". Thus, Mr Schlögl said, the Ministers had achieved much more at the meeting than originally planned. The actual objective of the meeting, he said, was merely to alert the public.
Sources: Der Standard, 17.7.98, 18/19.7.98; Question from Terezija Stoisits MP and others to the Austrian Interior Minister, Documentation service of the Austrian Greens, Doc no. I 4838/17.98; Agence Europe, 17.7.98.