By Daniela Schroeder Apr 20, 2007, 15:27 GMT
Luxembourg - The European Union on Friday said the Iraqi refugee crisis must be tackled in the region, stressing that there was no need for resettlement of Iraqis inside the EU.
The 27-member bloc also beefed up its border controls by agreeing to boost control teams that can be deployed quickly to support member states faced with massive arrivals of illegal immigrants, mainly from poor African countries.
'The numbers of refugees from Iraq is not such at the moment that we have to start emergency measures,' German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said after a meeting with his EU counterparts.
Schaeuble, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said that the problem of Iraqi refugees needed to be tackled in the region.
'The money spent there could help ten times more,' he added.
However, EU ministers made no pledges for new assistance to Iraq's neigbouring states which bear the brunt of the refugee crisis.
Syria is hosting 1.2 million Iraqis. At least 750,000 Iraqi refugees are estimated to live in Jordan, which has a population of 5.7 million.
EU justice chief Franco Frattini said the European Commission would make some 6 million euros available for EU countries which are seeing a growing influx of refugees from Iraq.
Sweden, which grants refugee status or other protection to almost all Iraqi asylum seekers, hosts the largest number of Iraqi refugees in the EU.
Some 9,000 Iraqis found a new home in Sweden last year. Stockholm expects some 20,000 more this year.
Around 20,000 Iraqis applied for asylum in the EU in 2006 compared to 2005 an increase of 77 per cent. Experts say the number is likely to double this year.
Swedish Migration Minister Tobias Billstroem demanded that other EU countries take in more vulnerable people fleeing Iraq. He also called for a further harmonization of widely differing asylum procedures in the EU.
Despite a commitment to an EU-wide common asylum system, member states not only take different approaches to Iraqi claims but also apply very different standards of treatment to asylum seekers.
Germany's Schaeuble said that the number of Iraqis fleeing to Europe was too small to invoke EU rules under which all asylum seekers would have to be accepted temporarily in the 27-member bloc without going through the usual asylum procedures.
EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, however, said resettlement of Iraqi refugees could become an issue for the whole EU if the situation in the strife-torn country further deteriorated.
'A joint commitment on behalf of the EU member states would be a concrete demonstration of burden-sharing vis-avis the hosting countries,' Frattini added in a letter to the German EU presidency.
The United Nations have called for a global solution to the Iraqi refugee situation, saying countries worldwide needed to alleviate a mounting humanitarian crisis in the Middle East by taking in Iraqis seeking to escape the escalating violence in the country.
Under EU rules adopted in 2001, temporary protection will be provided immediately to refugees from outside the EU 'where there might be a risk that the standard asylum system will be unable to process this influx without severely damaging it.'
The legal tool was developed following the conflicts in former Yugoslavia. However, EU member states have not yet used the rules.
Commenting on the EU's approach to immigration, Schaeuble said that 'combatting illegal migration is an important key' for the bloc.
Frattini said the bloc must also start tackling illegal immigration from Asia, adding that the Black Sea region was a major transit route for human trafficking.
In addition, Frattini called for tougher sanctions on illegal employment, including a freeze of EU funds for companies hiring illegal labour.
EU ministers also agreed to extend the competences of security teams made up of national experts which will be sent to aid member states at their request.
Some 450 border guards from the bloc's 27 member states will form the first permanent pool of security experts.
A new network designed to co-ordinate sea patrols at the EU's southern maritime borders will start its operations in May.
The EU's frontier control agency Frontex said member states had pledged to increase their support for patrolling the bloc's Mediterranean borders by making available a total of 21 planes, 27 helicopters and 116 boats.
New support for the border control agency would also include setting up satellite monitoring systems, EU ministers said.
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