EU agrees controversial new asylum rules

After more than three years of wrangling, the European Union agreed yesterday to controversial asylum rules that the United Nations and human rights campaigners say may compromise the rights of refugees.

The draft rules aim to harmonise procedures for seeking asylum inside the EU to ensure genuine refugees can find safe haven, while preventing economic migrants abusing the system to enter the wealthy bloc for work.

"This is an important step in the fight against asylum shopping," said hardline German Interior Minister Otto Schily, whose country receives one of the largest refugee flows.

EU interior ministers clinched a political compromise on the rules just days before the bloc expands to 25 member states tomorrow, which they had set as a deadline. It will still need formal approval before entering into force.

"Great progress has been made with this directive (EU law)," said liberal Swedish Migration Minister Barbro Holmberg, noting refugees secured the right to an interview when seeking asylum and the right to appeal against rejection of their claim.

"These things... are self-evident in Swedish law, but this actually raises the level across Europe, because that is not so obvious everywhere in Europe," she said.

To clinch a deal that required unanimity, EU president Ireland had to delete part of the proposals and limit the degree of harmonisation at EU level.

Among the issues they could not resolve was whether to designate some third countries as safe havens to which refugees could be sent. They also failed to agree whether refugees should stay in an EU state while their appeal was being processed.

The UN refugee agency and pressure groups such as Amnesty International have attacked the proposals, saying EU states were compromising refugees' rights in a bid to appease anti-immigrant sentiment among their own citizens.

But Ms Holmberg said the UNHCR had dropped some criticism after receiving assurances from the executive European Commission that international obligations were being respected.

The number of asylum seekers entering the EU has fallen, but asylum and immigration remain politically sensitive and anti-immigration parties have gained ground in many European countries by demanding tighter curbs on the influx of migrants.

Rights groups have said the European Parliament may challenge the new rules in the European Court of Justice. EU lawmakers are already taking legal action against rules restricting immigrants' rights to be reunited with relatives from outside the bloc, which were adopted last year.