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INSIGHT
EU Discusses Approaches Toward Illegal Immigrants
Aired June 21, 2002 - 17:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): How many different ways can you close a door? European leaders aim for a common approach against illegal immigrants. Are they worried about foreigners or the far right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(on camera): Hello and welcome.
There are about 400 illegal immigrant farm workers occupying buildings in Seville, Spain, demanding the right to stay in the country. They've been there for the last 11 days, and now they've started a 48-hour hunger strike. But when they sit down to eat again in two days' time, they probably won't be tasting victory.
Seville is the site of the European Union's Summit dominated by efforts to get illegals out of the EU. There isn't much sympathy for their demands right now. Europe gets hundreds of thousands of illegals every year, and its people are annoyed enough to turn to the far right in recent elections, in France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Italy, in part because of problems they associate with immigration. Whether European leaders agree or not, they can see the writing on the wall and the numbers at the ballot box.
On our program today, count them out. First, though, we check the hour's headlines.
(NEWS WORLD HEADLINES)
MANN: Europe is changing. Its birthrates are going down. Its people are getting older. And, as a result, its workforce is shrinking. It is an economic magnet for immigrants. But, it's also changing in the way that it feels about them. Migrants have long unease and hostility in certain places no matter where they move, but now, European political leaders are feeling that hostility, too.
European Union leaders hope to agree on ways to lower the number if illegal immigrants at their summit this weekend in Seville. Our senior European editor Robin Oakley is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN EDITOR (on camera): Immigration and enlargement of the European Union are the two key issues at this summit in Seville, and they're two issues which have been linked, in a way, by the growing strength of the far right across the European Union.
And what we're seeing is efforts by the efforts by the European Union leaders to pull their act together in terms of dealing with illegal immigration and hammering out some kind of common policy on the issues of political asylum and immigration in general. The European Union leaders have been spoiled by the success of the far right and realize that they'd agreed three years ago, at a Summit in Finland, that they were going to adopt a common policy. The problem is that they've not been able to agree what that common policy should be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: We'll hear more from Robin in a moment.
Hundreds of people try to board the trains that run through the Chunnel every night. Eurotunnel, the company that operates the route, says that it stopped 50,000 people last year. It is a dramatic number, but it's also a bit deceiving.
Most of the illegal immigrants in the EU got there legally, and just never went home. Even then, their presence, their populations, their problems may be less than some people believe. Simon Israel has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIMON ISRAEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Europe's number one priority is immigration and asylum. Fueled by panic and skewed perceptions, EU heads of state are desperately seeking the Holy Grail. Workable policies which will kick out, shut out, and keep out the undeserved and the unwanted.
Ahmed Korie may well become one of them. He's been in London for six years, and, now, the government wants to start deporting people back to his homeland of Somaliland, even though it does not recognize the government there. But, if Denmark can do it, then so could Britain. And so Ahmed may mark the beginnings of a common policy.
AHMED KORIE, ASYLUM SEEKER: If this government send us to Somaliland, we will need a lot of programs, economically, politically, and socially.
ISRAEL: Europe's leaders are convinced that its citizens are preoccupied with this issue. As evidence, they point to the rise, if you can call it that, of the populace right in France, Holland, Denmark, German, and, even here, all driving the perception that the continent is a rush with illegal immigrants.
BERTEL HAARDER, DANISH INTERIOR MINISTER: We would like to see some common action because it's important that the Union proves to its citizens that it can act when it comes to common problems, and illegal migration is an international problem. A global problem. And one country cannot fight it on its own. We have to cooperate.
ISRAEL: But do the figures justify this urgent need to act? Numbers of asylum applications have, in fact, been going down in many countries for the past three years. In Britain, the figure dropped from 91,000 applicants to 88,000. Germany's went down from 95 to 88,000. Only France's went up from 31 to 47,000. But, overall, Europe-wide figures have been in steady decline.
Taken as a percentage of the UK population, the number of asylum seekers who came in last year is just 0.15 percent. But, figures, by themselves, don't foster confidence in the asylum system, and, clearly, up until now, neither have EU leaders.
Having agreed principles in Tampori (ph) and Finland two years ago, virtually nothing has been done to develop a practical immigration strategy. Instead, each country has reacted to its own political problems.
PEER BANEKE, EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON REFUGEES & EXILES: Individual governments have changed those all the time, and they haven't done it together with the consequence that the policy in Europe, as a whole, hasn't worked. And the flows of refugees may just have been pushed from one country to another because of that.
ISRAEL: Asylum shopping, as they call it, because of asylum anomalies. Take work, for example. In Britain, asylum seekers are allowed to start working after six months. In Germany, it's one year. In Italy, they can't work at all.
Then, there's benefits. In France, they get cash for one year; whereas, in Germany, they get about 25 pounds a month and free meals. And, in a country like Greece, they get hardly anything at all. There are, also, a few contrasting laws in the making. In Italy, all immigrants will, soon have to be fingerprinted. Germany's preparing to prevent immigrants parents from bringing in any child over the age of 12. And, in Denmark, nationals under the age of 24, will be banned from marrying a non-EU citizen.
And that's part of a new deterrent strategy to crack down on what the Danes' view as parasites, in effect, illiterate, foreign speaking peoples attracted by Europe's highest minimum wage and benefits.
HAARDER: It's really a Nordic welfare state problem. This Swedes have some of the same problems. Maybe, the Dutch have some of it. But, I don't think Britain has the same kind of problem as we have, and the Germans and the French. It's a Nordic problem. We have found a Nordic solution, and we are not trying to impose that on anyone else.
ISRAEL: Once again, much of the focus is on securing porous borders, namely, the Mediterranean coastline. But more naval patrols from whatever country to counter an incessant seaboard invasion may merely lead to greater risk taking by traffickers who are meeting demand. History has shown the limitations of this form of deterrent. Enter the carrot or the stick to non-EU countries' aid.
CLAUDIO SCAJOLA, ITALIAN INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): The problem of surveillance of the seas is no longer the problem of just one country. We've agreed on the necessity to reverse the tide of immigrants. We've identified necessary steps to block this tide. We also agreed on a policy to deter immigration. They must clearly understand that if they don't help to stop the flow, there will be no help.
JAN KARLSSON, SWEDISH INTERIOR MINISTER: We have been critical to that sort of conditionality because we think it's not very efficient. We would rather prefer to see positive measures in the same fields when linking aid to migration.
ISRAEL: This proposal on the table initiated by Britain is unsurprisingly backed by Italy and Spain. But, opposing it Sweden, Finland, France, Luxembourg, and Portugal. Aid proposed as punishment or incentive may ultimately end up though, as the same thing, another device on top of all the other panic measures to simply try to deter.
Many involved in the welfare of refugees fear if there is agreement, it will be even harder for the genuine refugee to be recognized and to reach sanctuary in Europe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Simon Israel.
We have to take a break. When we come back, more on the politics of immigration and why EU nations can't seem to agree. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Nearly one in 10 people who live in Germany are from somewhere else. There have been frictions, even extremist violence. The far right is not a powerful force at the polls, but parliamentary elections are approaching, and political leaders want tighter controls on legal and illegal immigration.
Welcome back.
Germany adopted a new immigration law Thursday, about the time the German delegation would have been packing for the Seville Summit. The Germans were not waiting for a common EU policy. One sign, among others, that Seville isn't having an easy time of it. Once again, here's CNN's Robin Oakley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OAKLEY (voice-over): For Spanish Premiere Jose Maria Aznar, host to Europe's leaders, it hasn't been a happy few days. First, he had to delay the Summit opening because of a 24-hour general strike by Spanish unions. Then, Friday, the Basque terrorist group, ETA, who had urged summit leaders to listen to their calls for an independent homeland, underlined their point with two car bombs in Fuengirola and Marbella. Both are favorite Spanish resorts with international tourists. Six people were injured in the blasts, one British man critically.
While the summit leaders mostly managed a smile for the traditional class photo, it was tough going on the key issue of illegal immigration.
(on camera): There's a collective panic over immigration. Most EU leaders have economic studies at home telling them their countries need more immigrants to sustain their workforces and social security systems. But, that's not playing with the voters. So, never mind the detail. What they want from their get-together in Spain is headlines back home insisting just how tough they're going to be.
(voice-over): Aznar and Britain's Tony Blair want to cut the aid budgets of countries that don't do enough to stop illegals from traveling to Europe. Spain's Foreign Minister makes the point.
JOSEP PIQUE, SPAIN'S FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): In same ways it does for other countries that don't play the game, for example, in terror, on terrorism or human rights. The EU reserves the right to see whether or not there should be consequences to this behavior.
OAKLEY: But President Chirac of France was among those who want to give extra aid to encourage countries that cooperate. One idea has already been scrapped. There'll be no special EU police force created to patrol Europe's outer borders. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made that clear.
JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: And we are opposed to it at full stop.
OAKLEY: The leaders are agitating because of the far right's advance across Europe with its anti-immigration theme. Pat Cox, president of the European Parliament, urged them not to catch the far-right virus themselves. Some denied they had.
STRAW: What we're doing today is inoculating ourselves against those infections. But everybody agreed that the way you deal with matters that - parties of the extremes are seeking to exploit is by recognizing whether there is a genuine problem. And, for sure, there is a genuine problem of illegal immigration.
OAKLEY: The leaders agreed, nearly three years ago, they needed a common policy, but they haven't settled since what it should be. The European Union Summit ends Saturday, and aids have been told to find a solution overnight to give those leaders the headlines they want.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: A short time ago, we caught again with Robin to talk more about immigration and what the EU is trying to do.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OAKLEY: There's been no common policy, really, because most countries are jealous of their national sovereignty in dealing with issues like immigration. But what we've seen with the rise of voter discontent about immigration in many European countries and the linking of the issues of immigration and crime in the public mind in many countries is a number of countries going off and taking their own action, not waiting for the European Union to develop that common policy.
So, Italy's been getting tough and saying its going to fingerprint all immigrants and that it's banning anybody from coming in unless they've got a job contract before they do so. Denmark has introduced tough new immigration laws. Denmark, which use to be one of the most liberal countries of the European Union on the immigration question, has toughened up its laws under a new right-center government to say that there won't be benefits for immigrants for seven years after they come in the country. And that people over the age of 60, for example, won't be considered for political asylum.
Spain is now getting tougher in terms of the itinerant workers, the people who come in from Morocco, the peterras (ph) who come across in little boats across the Straits of Gibraltar. All across Europe, people have been reacting having seen the way in which far right parties have been able to exploit the issue of immigration. Parties have been worried about what they will suffer from their own voters, and they've been going off taking their own initiatives. And, now, the European Union is realizing it's got to get its common act together -- Jonathan.
MANN: Are the politicians, whether of the far right or of the mainstream parties, are the people in Europe really responding now to trends that are, essentially, over or much reduced? Everyone who points to statistics says the statistics suggest that, in fact, the number of asylum seekers and, perhaps even, the number of illegal aliens who never seek any kind of documentation are, actually, on their way down.
OAKLEY: Well, you're absolutely right, Jonathan. For example, the number of people seeking political asylum has dropped from about 675,000, at the height of the Balkan wars in the early 1990s, to 385,000 seeking political asylum in the European Union last year. So, those numbers are dropping.
It's a little bit difficult to know exactly how accurate the figures are about the numbers of illegal immigrants coming in, but most of them aren't coming in, as people think, across the borders and in rust buckets across the Mediterranean and jumping on trains going under the Channel tunnel. Most of them are people who've come in legitimately on visas and, then, over stayed and merged into the local economy.
And I think there's an element of hypocrisy on the way all the politicians are behaving on this in the sense that almost all the European Union leaders are being told by economists and experts in their own countries that they need more immigrants in their countries. Many of them have aging populations, falling birth rates. They're going to have difficulty sustaining their social security systems, and they're, certainly, having difficulty finding enough of a workforce for some of the lower paid jobs in society. So, they need those immigrants.
But, at the moment, voters don't like the idea of greater immigration and the possible social dislocation it can cause. They're reacting against it, but politicians are running scared, and they're not trying to make the economic case to their peoples for increased, if managed, immigration. Jonathan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: I'll have a break, and then Robin talks to the EU's Javier Solana about the summit. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Reform, enlargement, the Middle East, India, Pakistan. All topics for discussion at the EU Summit this weekend. But, if there were a lot of topics, there were an equal number of protesters, each finding their own particular way to denounce policies from globalization to Spanish subsidies for welfare.
Welcome back.
Despite the sometimes unusual protests, immigration remained the number one topic inside and outside the convention center. One protester said the most positive outcome for the Summit would be if it reached no agreement at all, a distinct possibility given everything we've just heard. Earlier, CNN's Robin Oakley caught with the EU's international policy chief, Javier Solana, to talk about that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OAKLEY: Mr. Solana, the main subject of this summit is immigration and asylum policy, but the European Union has been talking about having a common policy since 1999. It still hasn't got one. Why?
JAVIER SOLANA, EU INTERNATIONAL POLICY CHIEF: Well, we have, we have, today, as one of the most important topics that one. Not only that one, but, as far as immigration and asylum, today, we're going to concentrate mostly on illegal immigrations, how to control the flux of illegal migration, and how are we going to integrate the migrant, which have needed for our workforce, in our respective countries. So, it's going to be an important Summit from that point of view. It is true that we have, from 1999, some ideas about how to continue, but, today, important decision will be taken.
OAKLEY: But it seems to be a position of some anarchy at the moment. Denmark has produced its own tough new immigration policies on depriving benefits to immigrants. Italy is insisting on fingerprinting immigrants. Everybody's going their own way. How do you sort out the chaos? What can be done in common?
SOLANA: I don't this is the case, by no means. The different countries have different policies inside the country, but we want to have a common policy vis-a-vis immigration, in particularly, illegal migrations, and how to fight against the mafias which are controlling the illegal migration.
There is going to be a common policy, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) immigrants who have legal here in countries, the mechanism will be different for different countries, and it is in every place, the United States and many other countries in the world. And we want to have a common policy vis-a- vis the illegal migration.
OAKLEY: One suggestion is that, as far as asylum seekers are concerned, that the European Union countries should hit the developing countries, who refuse to cooperate in taking back failed asylum seekers, by cutting the aid they get, and some European Union countries say, no. Which way is it gonna go?
SOLANA: No. The policy of asylum in the European Union has been very generous always. The European Union has been countries of asylum for people who have been suffering from the political regions away of the European Union.
But we are not going to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that policy, but with illegal migration, yes. With most of the countries that produce illegal migrants, we have contractual relations. We have economic relation. We have cooperation. And that migration flux should be a package of the bilateral relation we have with those countries, and we don't want to put any new restrictions, but to construct a positive partnership with those countries that will include also the migration packages.
OAKLEY: Are we going to see a common border police for the European Union?
SOLANA: I don't think that we will have that approved today. It's an idea that has been considered, but I think it's not very mature enough, at this point, to take it as today as seriously.
OAKLEY: Now, the other key issue, here in Seville, is enlargement of the European Union. This is the crux year for 10 countries which want to get into the European Union by 2004. Some say the window of opportunity is closing because the advance of the far right has made EU countries reluctant to give a good deal to the African countries.
SOLANA: No. I don't that is the situation. The situation is that today, tomorrow will be a very, very important impulse and, by the end of the year, 2002, the countries which are ready to be part of the European Union will be invited.
And I consider that about 10 countries will be, will be able to enter the European Union or to take the decision by the end of the year 2002. That, as you can imagine, is a fantastic effort. Those countries will suppose about 100,000,000 new people that will be parts of the European Union institution.
OAKLEY: What's the big problem, though? The question of what farm subsidies should go to the new African countries has been postponed now until the Autumn, hasn't it?
SOLANA: Well, there are still several chapters which are open. One is the agricultural policy that it will also be linked to direct help to the agriculture people. Another will be, probably, the regional aid. But, I do hope that in the coming months, today, and in the coming months, the situation will be solved and, by the end of the year, we'll have the 10 countries, probably, chosen to be part of the European Union.
OAKLEY: And what about international relations which the leaders are going to be discussing? What can you do, really, to help in the chaos in the Middle East?
SOLANA: Well, the most important one will be the Middle East. We are in permanent contact with American administration. I had a good conversation yesterday with Mr. Powell. We are going to see the formal vision of President Bush, and we want to cooperate, as we are cooperating lately, with the United States, with the Russian Federation, and with the UN in order to see if a political initiative can be placed on the table. That is our aim. That would be the same aim that has the United States.
OAKLEY: And is there any role for the European Union in terms of the conflict between India and Pakistan?
SOLANA: Well, we are trying to help in the most constructive manner. Unfortunately, we have to overcome the difficulty of the last days, but that doesn't mean that the difficulty (UNINTELLIGIBLE) forever. The problem of Kashmir is still is there, and we have to continue cooperating with other countries and, in particular, with the United States to see we can diffuse this conflict.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Javier Solana speaking to Robin Oakley.
A final word before we go about a policy that Europe does have in common, and we saw it at Seville. Many of the leaders, among them England's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhardt Schroeder, were distracted by the World Cup. The summit itself started two hours late so Mr. Blair could watch the England (sic), USA match. He said, afterwards, he was devastated by the loss.
Mr. Schroeder skipped lunch and was able to watch the only goal of Germany's victory over the U.S. That leaves Spain as the only other EU contender left in the tournament. Mr. Schroeder is in a tight race for reelection and stands to gain politically if Germany wins the World Cup. He says he will be in Japan for the final, if his team gets that far.
That's all for this edition of INSIGHT. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.
END
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