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Suspicion nags at Tampere European Council
EU leaders try to forge common line on refugees and immigration
- By Annukka Oksanen & Paavo Rautio
When the heads of state and government of the EU countries sit down today in Tampere for the Special Meeting of the European Council, their deliberations are shadowed by suspicions on two fronts - those of the EU member-states one towards another, and those of citizens' rights organizations towards the intentions of the leaders sitting around the table.
- The themes of the Tampere gathering - justice and home affairs - have been traditionally at the core of the sovereignty concerns of individual member-states. Legal and judicial systems, along with the stance on refugees and their admission, vary from one country to another. EU-membership has done little to smooth over these differences, which have accumulated over decades and centuries.
- Any steps forward that are made in Tampere would involve the transfer of sovereignty to trans-national bodies and instruments. If the EU comes down in favour of a common policy on asylum-seekers and refugees, it means for example that Finland decides there and then that it trusts the Italians' ability to maintain a vigilant watch over its external borders. By the same token, it means that Germany agrees to trust that the Finns are willing to embrace greater numbers of refugees or at least stump up money for this purpose.
- Citizens' organizations around Europe, on the other hand, have the fear that Europe is about to build itself into a mighty fortress that denies entry to outsiders.
- The meeting is given a piquant extra flavour by the results of the recent Austrian election, in which the far-right rode to victory on a campaign that leant heavily on illegal immigration, crime, and xenophobia.
Transparency
somewhat lacking?
- In its role as the Presidency, Finland has given assurances that the meeting is about the security of EU citizens. Keeping the agenda under wraps until the very last minute has nevertheless raised doubts and suspicions. Civil servants in Brussels and citizens' organizations alike have criticized the arrangements as secretive.
- If it is going to be hard to find common ground in Tampere on refugee- and immigration policy, then it will be a major victory if the gathering manages even to get a decent discussion going on the subject of the European Area of Justice.
- Finland has set as one ambitious goal the mutual recognition of the judgements and decisions of civil courts in all member-states. The Green MEP Matti Wuori, a human rights lawyer of some distinction, states bluntly that the European Area of Justice is pure Utopian thinking. The legal systems of the EU members rest on such different traditions that to fuse them together will take generations, not a weekend in Finland.
New powers for Europol
may be only outcome
- Wuori fears that the meeting's main result may be the expansion and strengthening of Europol's operations, for example extending its ambit to cover the investigation of money laundering.
- He and other Greens have demanded that Europol be brought under some form of political control. Currently there is no such watchdog. Wuori takes the view that it is problematic if police cooperation moves smartly forward, but cooperation on justice does not.
No great hopes
on concrete results
- Advance assessments made in Brussels suggest that the meeting will not produce a great deal in terms of concrete results. The EU leaders will piece together a formal declaration, but the business of putting it into practice will take years.
- Those who advocate the strengthening of cooperative ties remind us that what is at stake here is "the creation of a common area for real freedom, justice, and security".
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.10.1999 |
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