Busuttil criticises handling of EU asylum package

Simon Busuttil MEP has criticised the way EU proposals on the new asylum legislative package were handled by the European Commission, leading to lack of progress.

The asylum package consists of a set of legal proposals that would define a common European asylum policy by 2012.

Speaking in the European Parliament yesterday evening during a plenary debate on the cost of examining asylum seekers applications in Member States, Dr Busuttil said that there were several reasons for the current blockage.

One of the reasons, he said, was that a number of Member States were already struggling to adapt to existing regulations and had no appetite for new and tougher laws.

He also said that the new proposals also envisaged standards that would impose unrealistic burdens on Member States that were already facing difficulties. Dr Busuttil said that the European Commission had also failed to produce a study of the financial implications of its proposals.

Dr Busuttil also criticised the Commission for failing to come up with a legislative proposal to establish a legally-binding solidarity mechanism among EU countries and added that the Council of Ministers was stone-walling progress on the review of the notorious Dublin Regulation. He welcomed, however, the intention of the Hungarian Presidency to put the Dublin Regulation in its priorities.

Busuttil concluded that, despite the lack of progress achieved so far, the EPP group was open to a compromise agreement that would be satisfactory to all concerned.

Dr Busuttil is the European People’s Party spokesperson on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.