Labour sells out on EU asylum
Posted, April 28, 2009 @ 12:00
Further loss of border controls on the way
Labour's handover of control of our borders to the EU is another step closer after the European Parliament's justice and home affairs committee voted through an EU-wide common asylum system, Philip Bradbourn MEP, Conservative justice and home affairs spokesman, warned.
The parliament has adopted plans to amend three pieces of legislation in the Common European Asylum System. Amendments to the directive on reception conditions for asylum-seekers seeks to make detention only possible in exceptional circumstances and gives asylum seekers access to the labour market. Amendments to the Dublin regulation would remove the ability under the Dublin convention for countries to return asylum seekers to the first safe nation they land; and the Eurodac regulation which requires transmission of fingerprint data to a central unit.
Labour ministers have chosen to 'opt-in' to the package and Labour MEPs will be fighting the European elections on a pan-European socialist manifesto that commits them to the 'communautarisation’ of immigration policy.
Mr Bradbourn said:
"We need greater cooperation to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the EU and making the trip to Britain. However once again the EU thinks the only answer to justified immigration concerns is to take control of asylum policy.
"Genuine asylum seekers must be given decent treatment but it should be for us to make the difference between illegal immigrants and those genuinely seeking asylum and to return unsuccessful asylum seekers to the first safe country in which they they land. Economic migrants posing as asylum seekers would have an easy ride under these plans.
"Controlling our borders is one of the most important roles of government. For over a decade, Labour has been unable to form a coherent immigration policy but that should not justify handing it over to Brussels."