Category: 1.1 News from the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice

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The EU-US Umbrella agreement on Data Protection just presented to the European Parliament. All people apparently happy, but….

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED BY EU-LOGOS

by Paola Tavola (EU LOGOS Trainee)

“For the first time ever, the EU citizens will be able to know, by looking at one single set of rules, which minimum rights and protection they are entitled to, with regards to data share with the US in the law enforcement sector”. These are the words of P. Michou, chief negotiator in charge of the negotiation process of the so called EU-US “Umbrella Agreement”, who gave a public overview on the lately finalized transatlantic data protection framework in the field of law enforcement cooperation. The speech, delivered during the last meeting of the LIBE committee of the European Parliament, has met a warm welcome by the MEPs. Great congratulations have been expressed by all the political groups, for the work done by the negotiating team of the Commission that, from its side, has thanked the LIBE committee for its strong support and pressures. As Mrs. Michou said, they “helped us to be stronger in our negotiations”. Negotiations that were dealt with a partner that is far from being an easy one. The words of Michou, however, have not completely reassured all the MEPs, who have called for a legal opinion on the text of the agreement to be delivered by the legal department of the European Parliament. Legal certainties about the potential benefits or detrimental effects that this agreement could have on the existing EU data protection rules, as well as on past and future agreements, have been asked by the majority of the deputies, as a necessary precondition for the vote.

Historical context

An EU-US agreement in the field of protection of personal data was already called by the European Parliament in the year 2009. At that time, in a resolution on the state of transatlantic relation, the Parliament underlined the necessity of a “proper legal framework, ensuring adequate protection of civil liberties, including the right to privacy”, to be agreed on the base of a binding international agreement. The Commission then, on the invitation of the European Council, proposed a draft mandate for starting the negotiations with the United States, on a high standard system of data protection. The final mandate, being adopted by the Council in December 2010, opened the negotiation procedure among the two partners, that formally started on March 2011.

The negotiations have been though, mainly because of a great cultural difference existing among the two partners in terms of data protection, but after four years of work, the agreement has been initialed in Luxembourg, last September 8th. The final text, that can be signed only with the authorization of the Council and the consent of the Parliament, represents a huge step forward: “if we look back to some years ago, it was clear that some of the issues that have been now achieved in the text, couldn’t even have been theoretically possible”, Jan Philippe Albrecht (Greens/EFA) said, by opening the debate after Mrs. Michou speech.

The european Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Věra Juorová, by declaring full satisfaction for the conclusion of the discussions, affirmed: “robust cooperation between the EU and the US to fight crime and terrorism is crucial to keep Europeans safe. But all exchanges of personal data, such as criminal records, names or address, need to be governed by strong data protection rules. This is what the Umbrella Agreement will ensure.”

Terrorism or organized crime are phenomena that definitely constitute serious threats to security. However, leaving aside the narrow concept of security, as many theories and authors consider nowadays, a threat to security can be identified as any threat to the “cherished values” of our society: thus also to those values such as the right of privacy and the data protection.

The issue concerns how security and law enforcement are able to positively and constructively interact with new technology, but also to clash with it.

On one side, the information and data sharing is now a fundamental and crucial aspect of policy and judicial inter-state cooperation, since major threats and criminal phenomena have assumed a transnational connotation. On the other side however, it is necessary to ensure the protection and the fair and limited treatment of information, that is transferred as part of the transatlantic cooperation in criminal matters, in order to avoid abuses and the setting up of mass surveillance systems.

The two transatlantic partner, have already settled a substantial framework of data transfer rules. In 2010 they signed an agreement on the processing and transfer of financial messaging data from the EU to the US, for the purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP); while in 2012 they concluded a bilateral agreement for the exchange of PNR (Passenger Name Records) data.

“Data protection is a fundamental right of particular importance in the digital age. In addition to swiftly finalizing the legislative work on common data protection rules within the European Union, we also need to uphold this right in our external relations.” This principle was included by Jean-Claude Juncker in the political priorities of the European Commission agenda, presented in July 2014.

A look inside the “Umbrella Agreement” Continue reading “The EU-US Umbrella agreement on Data Protection just presented to the European Parliament. All people apparently happy, but….”

The Italian Job: the CJEU strengthens criminal law protection of the EU’s finances (Comment to ‘Taricco’ Case)

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS

by Steve Peers

The stereotype of fraud against the EU budget is a sleazy EU official in Brussels receiving manila envelopes stuffed full of bribe money, spending his ill-gotten gains to ensure that his lavish lifestyle becomes ever more decadent. But according to the EU’s annual reports on such fraud, the typical offender is actually rather different: it’s an individual or company who finds ways to get hands on EU money being spent by the Member States, since they are largely in charge of the day-to-day management of EU spending. Furthermore, not all the breaches concern EU spending: some concern the reduction of EU income, for instance by avoiding the customs duties which apply to many goods coming from third countries.

Agreeing and enforcing EU-wide rules for such behaviour has long been a challenge. But in its recent judgment in Taricco, the Court of Justice has made a major effort to strengthen the law in this field.

Background

The CJEU ruled back in the 1980s (in the Greek maize judgment) that Member States could not simply ignore fraud against the EU budget, but had to take effective measures to stop it. This rule was later added to the Treaties, and now forms Article 325 TFEU, which reads in part as follows:

The Union and the Member States shall counter fraud and any other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the Union through measures to be taken in accordance with this Article, which shall act as a deterrent and be such as to afford effective protection in the Member States, and in all the Union’s institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.
Member States shall take the same measures to counter fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union as they take to counter fraud affecting their own financial interests.

As regards criminal law, the current legal rules on the topic date back to 1995, and were adopted in the form of an international Convention (the ‘PFI Convention’) between the Member States, which came into force in 2002. This treaty applies to all Member States except for Croatia (although the Commission has just proposed its application to that State), and the UK – which was initially a party but no longer has legal obligations to apply the Convention since it opted out of many pre-Lisbon criminal law measures as from 1 December 2014 (on that process, see further here). Among other things, the PFI Convention obliges all Member States to impose criminal sanctions for serious cases of fraud against the EU budget.

The Commission proposed a Directive to replace the Convention in 2012, and this is currently in the late stages of negotiation between the Council and the European Parliament (for an update, see here; on the legal basis, see here). It’s evident that one of the main issues remaining in the negotiations is whether the proposed Directive should apply to VAT fraud, given that a small amount of VAT revenue goes to the EU budget. The Commission and the European Parliament argue that it should, while the Council argues against, presumably because the far larger part of the losses from VAT fraud affects national budgets, not the EU budget. There are other issues in the proposed legislation, such as a more precise possible penalty for fraud, and a rule on ‘prescription’ periods (ie the time limit after which a prosecution can no longer be brought or continued).

The proposed Directive is closely connected to another piece of proposed EU legislation: the Regulation establishing the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). That’s because the EPPO will have jurisdiction only over EU fraud, and so it’s necessary to have a definition of that concept. (On the defence rights aspects of the EPPO proposal, see discussion here); for an update on negotiations, see here). And the EPPO Regulation is in turn linked to a third legislative proposal: the Regulation refounding Eurojust, the EU’s agency for coordinating national prosecutions. That’s because there will be close links between Eurojust and the EPPO, and so the Eurojust Regulation can’t be finalized before the EPPO Regulation is agreed. (The Council has agreed all of the Eurojust Regulation except for the bits relating to EPPO links: see the agreed text here. This will still have to be negotiated with the European Parliament, however).

Judgment

The recent CJEU judgment in Taricco concerns alleged VAT fraud against a national budget, and in particular the question of prescription periods. Italian rules on the breaks in prescription periods mean few cases involving VAT fraud are ever seen through to completion, since time simply runs out during the proceedings. A frustrated Italian court therefore asked the CJEU whether these national rules infringed the economic law of the EU: namely the rules on competition, state aids, economic and monetary union and the main VAT Directive.

According to the CJEU, the national law does not infringe EU competition law, because inadequate enforcement of criminal law does not as such promote cartels. It does not infringe state aid law, because the Italian government was not waiving tax obligations as such. Furthermore, it does not infringe monetary union rules, since it was not closely enough linked to the obligation to maintain sound public finances.

That left the VAT Directive. In fact, that Directive sets out the scope of VAT (ie which goods and services have to be taxed), but does not include any rules on criminal law issues. The Court therefore assumed that the national court was asking it questions about EU law more generally, and proceeded to interpret Article 325 TFEU and the PFI Convention. According to the Court, building on the previous case law such as Fransson, there was not only an obligation pursuant to the VAT Directive and Article 325 TFEU to take effective measures in general against VAT fraud to defend the EU budget, there was also a specific obligation to criminalise such activity, where it was ‘essential to combat certain serious cases of VAT evasion in an effective and dissuasive manner’. This was consistent with obligations under the PFI Convention; the Court confirmed that the Convention applied to VAT fraud, despite the absence of express provisions to this effect under the Convention. Given the size of the alleged fraud in this case (several million euros), it had to be considered serious.

Furthermore, the Court ruled that the operation of the limitation periods in Italian law infringed Article 325 TFEU. A limitation period was not objectionable as such, but national law made it effectively possible to prosecute offences because the way in which it calculated breaks in the prosecution. Also, the national law infringed the principle of equality set out in Article 325, since other national laws on similar types of economic crime did not contain the same problematic rules on calculation of breaks.

The Court then ruled on the consequences of this breach of EU law. In the Court’s view, the national court has to disapply the relevant national law. This obligation was based on Article 325 TFEU, which sets out precise and unconditional rules on effective and equal protection of the EU’s financial interests. So the ‘precedence’ (ie, primacy or supremacy) of EU law required national law to be disapplied.

Finally, the CJEU dismissed a human rights objection to its ruling. While Article 49 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights does ban the retroactive application of more stringent criminal penalties than those in force when a crime was committed, the CJEU ruled (following the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the equivalent Article 7 ECHR) that a limitation period was distinct from a substantive criminal offence. The acts which the defendants were accused of committing were undoubtedly criminal offences in national law at the time of their alleged commission, so there was no retroactivity of criminal law in the sense prohibited by the Charter.

Comments

“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” This classic quote from The Italian Job aptly summarises the CJEU’s approach to the relationship between national law and EU law in this judgment. Asked only to rule on the interpretation of EU economic law, the Court decided instead to strengthen the constitutional foundations of EU law in the criminal field.

Substantively, the Court’s judgment is significant because it extends EU criminal law obligations to VAT fraud. This is, in the Court’s view, a pre-existing obligation not only in the PFI Convention, but also in the TFEU itself. To overturn it, Member States would therefore have to amend the Treaty, not just the Convention (in the form of the proposed Directive). Also, Member States’ obligations extend not only to criminalisation of serious cases of VAT fraud, but to prescription (and so potentially other procedural issues) as well. So if Member States (in the Council) do insist on excluding VAT from the scope of the EU fraud Directive, that would have limited impact. Indeed, the Council Presidency has already asked Member States if there is any point maintaining their opposition on this point after the Taricco judgment.

Presumably the Court’s rulings on prescription and criminalisation apply to other forms of EU fraud too. This means that including prescription rules in the Directive (as all of the EU institutions are willing to do) simply confirms the status quo – although the final Directive will likely be more precise on this issue than the CJEU’s ruling. Furthermore, since the Taricco judgment could help to unblock talks on the PFI Directive, this could have a knock-on effect on the negotiations on the EPPO and Eurojust.

Moreover, the Court’s ruling limits the effect of various opt-outs. Ireland and Denmark have opted out of the proposed Directive, but will remain bound by the PFI Convention; the UK has opted out of both. But they remain bound by the Court’s interpretation of the Convention (for Ireland and Denmark) and the Treaty (for all three Member States). This has limited practical impact, as long as national law remains compliant (assuming that it is already compliant) with these measures as interpreted by the Court. While the UK is no longer free to decriminalise fraud against the EU budget, it was never likely to use that ‘freedom’ anyway, particularly as regards VAT fraud, where the main loss would be to the British government’s revenue, not the EU’s.

More fundamentally, the Taricco judgment strengthens the constitutional foundations of criminal law obligations in the EU legal order. While this may only be relevant for EU fraud cases, the Court has already broadened that concept to include VAT fraud. In such cases, there is an obligation for national courts to disapply incompatible national law as regards the procedural aspects of criminal proceedings. Conversely, there is no obligation to disapply incompatible substantive national criminal law, since this would lead to a breach of Article 49 of the Charter.

The ruling is based on the legal effect of the Treaties – the Court does not rule on the legal effect of the ‘third pillar’ Convention. It sets out a test for primacy similar to the test for direct effect (the Court refers to the precise and unconditional nature of the rules in Article 325 TFEU). It is not clear how this rule fits into the EU’s overall constitutional architecture – as a clarification of the general rules or as a special rule relating to protection of the EU’s financial interests. But in any event, the Taricco judgment is a significant contribution toward strengthening the EU’s role in this particular field.

An updated version (2014) of the Handbook on European law relating to asylum, borders and immigration just published..

(EXCERPTS OF THE HANDBOOK INTRODUCTION)

A first version of the handbook on the European law relating to asylum, borders and immigration is co-authored by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and by by the European Court of Human Rights was published (in four languages) in June 2013. This second edition incorporates the changes to the EU asylum acquis published in the summer of 2013. Future updates of this handbook will become available on the FRA webpage at: http://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/asylum-migration-borders and on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) webpage at: www.echr.coe.int under “Publications”.

This handbook provides an overview of the law applicable to asylum, border man-agement and immigration in relation to European Union (EU) law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It looks at the situation of those foreigners whom the EU usually refers to as third-country nationals, although such distinction is not relevant for cited ECHR law.

The handbook does not cover the rights of EU citizens, or those of citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who, under EU law, can enter the territory of the EU freely and move freely within it. Reference to such categories of citizens will be made only where necessary in order to understand the situation of family members who are third-country nationals.

There are, under EU law, some 20 different categories of third-country nationals, each with different rights that vary according to the links they have with EU Member States or that result from their need for special protection.

For some, such as asylum seekers, EU law provides a comprehensive set of rules, whereas for others, such as students, it only regulates some aspects while leaving other rights to EU Member States’ discretion. In general, third-country nationals who are allowed to settle in the EU are typically granted more comprehensive rights than those who stay only temporarily. (…)

This handbook is designed to assist legal practitioners who are not specialised in the field of asylum, borders and immigration law; it is intended for lawyers, judges, prosecutors, border guards, immigration officials and others working with national authorities, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other bodies that may be confronted with legal questions relating to these subjects.

It is a first point of reference on both EU and ECHR law related to these subject areas, and explains how each issue is regulated under EU law as well as under the ECHR, the European Social Charter (ESC) and other instruments of the Council of Europe. Each chapter first presents a single table of the applicable legal provisions under the two separate European legal systems. Then the relevant laws of these two European orders are presented one after the other as they may apply to each topic. This allows the reader to see where the two legal systems converge and where they differ.

Practitioners in non-EU states that are member states of the Council of Europe and thereby parties to the ECHR can access the information relevant to their own country by going straight to the ECHR sections.

Practitioners in EU Member States will need to use both sections as those states are bound by both legal orders. For those who need more information on a particular issue, a list of references to more specialised material can be found in the ‘Further reading’ section of the handbook.

ECHR law is presented through short references to selected European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) cases related to the handbook topic being covered. These have been chosen from the large number of ECtHR judgments and decisions on migration issues that exist.

EU law is found in legislative measures that have been adopted, in relevant provisions of the Treaties and in particular in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as interpreted in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, otherwise referred to, until 2009, as the European Court of Justice (ECJ)).

The case law described or cited in this handbook provides examples of an important body of both ECtHR and CJEU case law. The guidelines at the end of this handbook are intended to assist the reader in searching for case law online.

Not all EU Member States are bound by all the different pieces of EU legislation in the field of asylum, border management and immigration. Annex 1 on the ‘Applicability of EU regulations and directives cited in this handbook’ provides an overview of which states are bound by which provisions.

It also shows that Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom have most frequently opted out of the instruments listed in this handbook. Many EU instruments concerning borders, including the Schengen acquis – meaning all EU law adopted in this field – and certain other EU law instruments, also apply to some non-EU Member States, namely Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and/or Switzerland.

While all Council of Europe member states are party to the ECHR, not all of them have ratified or acceded to all of the ECHR Protocols or are State Party to the other Council of Europe conventions mentioned in this handbook. Annex 2 provides an overview of the applicability of selected Council of Europe instruments, including the relevant Protocols to the ECHR. Substantial differences also exist among the states which are party to the ESC. States joining the ESC system are allowed to decide whether to sign up to individual articles, although subject to certain minimum requirements. Annex 3 provides an overview of the acceptance of ESC provisions.

EU-USA “UMBRELLA” AGREEMENT ON DATA PROTECTION: A …LEAKY UMBRELLA ?

Posted HERE on 18. September 2015

by Peter Schaar

On 8 September 2015, the European Commission announced the successful completion of the negotiations with the US on a framework agreement („Umbrella Agreement“), that shall apply to the co-operation between law enforcement authorities. „Once in force, this agreement will guarantee a high level of protection of all personal data when transferred between law enforcement authorities across the Atlantic. It will in particular guarantee that all EU citizens have the right to enforce their data protection rights in US courts“, said the competent EU Commissioner Věra Jourová. Prerequisite for the signing of the agreement will be, however, that the US Congress will have approved the necessary legislative changes („Judicial Redress Bill“).

Although the Commission initially did not want to publish the agreement, the text – however – has found it’s way into the Internet, enabling the assessment.

First the good news: The agreement contains, in fact, substantial concessions from the US side. It has to be highlighted, that the US shall even provide EU citizens with a right to seek judicial redress if they are of the opinion that their privacy rights have been violated in the context of processing information the respective US authorities have received from the EU. Over years, the US government insisted on granting EU citizens only administrative redress. For Europe such limited redress – ultimately depending on the goodwill of the US administration – would not have provided an adequate level of data protection.

Another positive aspect is that both sides have agreed to commit to the principles of proportionality, necessity and purpose limitation and that they have to determine the use and duration of storage of personal information in accordance with these principles. The concrete purposes of data processing and the retention periods have to be determined by the specific legal acts.

However, although the agreement improves the legal status of EU citizens whose data are transferred to the US, it would be a misperception that the agreement provides EU citizens with the same privacy rights as US persons. If this would have been intended, the rights provided by US Privacy Act of 1974 and other laws, currently limited to US citizens and residents, could have been extended to EU citizens. Instead, the agreement text contains complicated rules, which do not ensure equality in the result. EU citizens have first to seek administrative redress. They may call a US court only after administrative redress definitely was exhausted. In addition, administrative and judicial redress are limited to those privacy rights explicitly specified in the Agreement, as the right to access and correction of the personal information. The agreement will not grant EU citizens – unlike US citizens – further rights to challenge the lawfulness of the entire process of data processing before a US court.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the agreement shall apply only to judicial and police authorities, but not to authorities with the task to guarantee the „national security“. US intelligence agencies like the NSA and the CIA share personal data with law enforcement agencies, even if they have received these information from their European partners. The provisions of the umbrella agreement would not apply in these cases. Last but not least the agreement does not cover data US and European authorities collect on the basis of national laws, i.e. the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) or similar European legislation.

Another limitation of the umbrella: While according to the European data protection law, all personal data will be protected regardless of the nationality of the persons concerned, the agreement should apply only to data on EU citizens which have been transferred to the US by European authorities or companies based on bilateral or multilateral agreements. So data relating to citizens of third countries remain unprotected.

Finally, the agreement (Art. 21) falls short, however, with regard to the data protection oversight. It lacks an explicit commitment of both parties to ensure an independent data protection supervision. While the European Union commits that the independent data protection authorities shall be competent to check the provisions, the agreement refers with respect to the United States on a variety of oversight institutions, some of them not independent, which are to exercise the supervision of data protection „cumulatively“.

Given these shortcomings, to me the exultation of the agreement seem premature. The European legal bodies which need to approve the ratification of the agreement, in particular the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States are called upon to thoroughly examine the agreement, in particular, its compatibility with the provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Depending on the results of such assessment it might be necessary to renegotiating and caulking the umbrella.

HUMANITARIAN VISAS : AN EU TOOL FOR A SAFE ACCESS TO THE EU TERRITORY ?

The Civil Liberties Committee is currently examining a Commission proposal on the revision of the VISA Code. The EP Rapporteur, Lopez Aguilar has just submitted a draft report proposing several amendments some of which covering also the issue of the so-called Humanitarian visas as a possible complementary measure to overcome the current emergency situation for the EU migration policy. The deadline for amendments in view of the future LIBE vote is September 25 and between the external contributions the letter of several representatives of Churches of different confessions is worth reading. EDC

To Members of the European Parliament LIBE Committee

Brussels, 15 September 2015

Humanitarian visa within the EU Visa Code (recast)

Dear Members of the EP LIBE Committee,

Our organizations represent Churches throughout Europe – Anglican, Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic – as well as Christian agencies particularly concerned with migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Our position on humanitarian visas has been developed in close cooperation with the Brussels’ office of the Protestant Church of Germany EKD. Today, we are writing to you regarding the Commission’s proposal for a new EU Visa Code – COM(2014) 164 final.

In our policy paper released in November 2014 we urgently called for the development of a ‘toolbox’ of safe and legal ways to protection in Europe.

Among the proposed ‘tools’ was the issuing of humanitarian visas. Recently, the European Union has taken several encouraging steps regarding asylum policy. Now, the recast of the EU Visa Code represents a unique opportunity to introduce humanitarian visas throughout the EU which would be an important way to allow for safe access to EU territory and could help save thousands of lives and contribute to putting people smugglers out of business.

The European Commission’s communication on the EU Agenda on Migration May 2015 mentions that safe and legal ways need to be available for the most vulnerable groups of people reaching our borders. Moreover, in its resolution on the latest tragedies in the Mediterranean, adopted on 29 April 2015, the European Parliament has, inter alia, called on Member States in point 7: “to make full use of the existing possibilities for issuing humanitarian visas at their embassies and consular offices”.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mr António Guterres called in a speech on 9 July 2015 for developing ways for legal migration giving the example of humanitarian visas. Additionally, in its recent recommendations for the Luxembourg and Netherlands’ EU Presidencies, UNHCR underlined the need for other legal and safe ways to Europe, in addition to increasing refugee resettlement from first countries of asylum.

We welcome the recent adoption of an EU wide resettlement plan, allowing 22.504 Syrians refugees to be resettled by EU Member States. However, complementary legal avenues must be made available, to prevent further tragedies of refugees perishing at sea in their attempts to seek protection. As we have explained in our ‘toolbox’ the humanitarian visas are one among many solutions which could help some of the most vulnerable asylum seekers.

The purpose of this letter is threefold. Firstly, to explain what humanitarian visas are; secondly, to explore the experience of states in issuing humanitarian visas; and thirdly, to demonstrate how humanitarian visa fit within the EU Visa Code.

What are humanitarian visas?

Continue reading “HUMANITARIAN VISAS : AN EU TOOL FOR A SAFE ACCESS TO THE EU TERRITORY ?”

‘Safe countries of origin’: Assessing the new proposal

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS

by Steve PEERS

Among the large number of new initiatives taken by the EU Commission regarding immigration and asylum last week, three of them are proposals for binding measures: a second temporary measure relocating asylum-seekers; a permanent system of relocation for asylum-seekers; and a Regulation setting out a common list of ‘safe countries of origin’ – which would consist of the Western Balkans countries and Turkey. I will be commenting on the relocation proposals in future, but for now I want to examine the ‘safe country of origin’ rules.

It should be noted that the UK, Ireland and Denmark have an opt-out from all of these measures, and the European Parliament (EP) is only consulted on the temporary relocation proposal. However, the EP has its usual joint decision-making role on the proposals for a permanent relocation system, and for the ‘safe country of origin’ list.

Background: the ‘safe country of origin’ idea

Two central misconceptions about the ‘safe country of origin’ concept must be dispelled at the outset. First of all, designating a country as a ‘safe country of origin’doesn’t mean that all asylum applications from that country’s citizens are automatically refused. Rather it creates a presumption of safety – but that presumption is rebuttable. It will likely be harder to rebut that assumption, since such applications are usually fast-tracked (more on the details below). But it is not absolutely impossible.

Secondly, the ‘safe country of origin’ concept is different from a ‘safe third country’ concept. A ‘safe country of origin’ is a country where its own citizens are generally not persecuted, whereas a ‘safe third country’ is a country where an asylum-seeker who came from a different country should (in the view of the country applying that rule) have applied for asylum instead.

The two rules have different consequences: the ‘safe country of origin’ rule goes to the heart of the definition of refugee, because it concerns the treatment of the asylum-seeker in the country of origin. But the ‘safe third country’ rule doesn’t address the question of whether the asylum-seeker was safe in the country of origin: it simply asserts that the asylum seeker should have applied for asylum somewhere else. It’s for that other State to decide whether or not the asylum-seeker has sufficient grounds to be considered a refugee, or to get another form of protection. For that reason, EU asylum law classifies the ‘safe country of origin’ rule as a rule determining the admissibility of an asylum application, not its merits.

Are the two groups of countries the same? Not necessarily. It may sound odd to say that a country can be ‘safe’ in one context, but not ‘safe’ in another. But let’s put it another way: can we imagine that a State might treat its own citizens reasonably well, but treat asylum-seekers badly? I’ll return below to the question of whether some of the key Western Balkans states can in fact be considered ‘safe third countries’ as well as ‘safe countries of origin’.

Even before EU asylum law was first adopted, some countries had their own national version of the ‘safe country of origin’ concept. The first-phase EU asylum procedures Directive, adopted in 2005, put in place a minimum degree of harmonization for the concept. It specified (in an Annex) that these were countries where there was:

“generally and consistently no persecution as defined in Article 9 of Directive 2004/83/EC [the first-phase qualification Directive, defining refugee and subsidiary protection status], no torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and no threat by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict.

In making this assessment, account shall be taken, inter alia, of the extent to which protection is provided against persecution or mistreatment by: (a) the relevant laws and regulations of the country and the manner in which they are applied; (b) observance of the rights and freedoms laid down in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and/or the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights and/or the Convention against Torture, in particular the rights from which derogation cannot be made under Article 15(2) of the said European Convention; (c) respect of the non-refoulement principle according to the Geneva Convention; (d) provision for a system of effective remedies against violations of these rights and freedoms.”

The Directive also allowed Member States to designate part of a country as safe, or to maintain pre-existing national rules which had a lower standard. It also specified that to apply a ‘safe country of origin’ rule, Member States had to ‘have regard to the legal situation, the application of the law and the general political circumstances in the third country concerned’. Their ‘assessment of whether a country is a safe country of origin’ had to ‘be based on a range of sources of information, including in particular information from other Member States, the UNHCR, the Council of Europe and other relevant international organisations’.

As noted above, the list could only create a presumption of safety. More precisely, the Directive stated that the presumption could only apply if the asylum-seeker ‘has not submitted any serious grounds for considering the country not to be a safe country of origin in his/her particular circumstances and in terms of his/her qualification as a refugee in accordance with Directive 2004/83/EC’. Member States were also obliged to ‘lay down in national legislation further rules and modalities for the application of the safe country of origin concept’.

The Directive allowed (but did not require) ‘safe country of origin’ applications to be fast-tracked. In that case, while all the basic procedural rights still applied in principle, Member States had an option to skip a personal interview, and there were deadlines for decision-making and appeals in national law which made it much harder for applicants to make their case. It was more likely that appeals would not have suspensive effect (allowing the asylum-seeker to stay on the territory during the appeal) in such cases.

At the last minute while negotiating this Directive, a group of larger Member States decided it would be a good idea to have a common list of ‘safe countries of origin’ – over ten years ahead of the Commission’s recent proposal. But they then squabbledfor 18 months over which States should be on this common list (EU asylum law decision-making then had to be unanimous). They eventually gave up agreeing the list straight away, but left a clause in the Directive allowing for the possibility of adopting a common list in future. That clause was in turn challenged successfully by the EP before the CJEU; the Court struck down the clause on the grounds that any such common list could only be adopted by means of a legislative or ‘comitology’ procedure, not the ad hoc procedure that the Council had made up.

When it came to the second-phase procedures Directive, which was adopted in 2013 and has applied to all asylum applications made since July 20 2015, there was no interest in returning to the concept of a common list. The basic criteria for designating a ‘safe country of origin’ remain the same, but the possibilities of keeping pre-existing lower standards, or of designating part of a country as ‘safe’, were dropped. (However, it’s still possible, under the qualification Directive, to argue that an asylum-seeker could have fled to safety within his or her own country). The safeguards for individuals to rebut the presumption were retained. It’s still possible to fast-track a ‘safe country of origin’ application, but the option to skip the personal interview was dropped. Finally, although the second-phase Directive now allows applicants in principle to stay pending the outcome of an appeal, it’s also possible for Member States to derogate from this rule in ‘safe country of origin’ cases (as well as some others), as long as the applicant has the right to challenge his or her removal before a court first.

The Commission proposal Continue reading “‘Safe countries of origin’: Assessing the new proposal”

La politique européenne d’asile : Strange fruit ? (III, fin)

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON CDRE 13 SEPTEMBRE 2015

par Henri Labayle

III – Sortie de crise ?

Le discours de Jean Claude Juncker sur l’état de l’Union, le 9 septembre, a eu le mérite courageux d’investir le terrain dégagé par la République fédérale d’Allemagne, suivie par la France. De haute tenue et sans donner de leçon à quiconque, le président de la Commission a rappelé à chacun dans l’Union son passé autant que son héritage pour relancer l’adoption de son programme législatif.

Si la réglementation d’un programme de relocalisation de réfugiés revue à la hausse a focalisé l’attention parce qu’elle place chacun devant ses responsabilités, les autres éléments de son discours méritent l’attention et l’on y reviendra ultérieurement ici.

1. La confirmation d’un mécanisme de relocalisation d’urgence

A l’évidence et au vu des évènements en cours à la fin de l’été, le thème de la relocalisation des personnes pénétrées dans l’Union demeurait prioritaire, à la fois pour purger le dossier ouvert en juillet mais aussi pour faire face à l’avenir.

Répondre dans l’urgence à une situation humanitaire devenue intenable au centre et au sud de l’Union européenne était un impératif, infligeant la preuve de la quasi-impossibilité de s’opposer démocratiquement de façon policière à une telle vague.

Si l’itinéraire de la proposition de la Commission visant à soulager l’Italie et la Grèce n’a pas été de tout repos et si le président de la Commission a justement été déçu du sort fait à son initiative, le thème de la délocalisation a eu, au moins, le mérite d’ouvrir un double débat, celui de l’intangibilité du système de Dublin et celui des « quotas » de demandeurs d’asile.

L’idée de « quotas » de demandeurs d’asile a fait difficilement son chemin, suscitant soit une opposition de principe à l’idée, comme pour les autorités françaises, soit un refus de toute contrainte pour une part non négligeable d’Etats, notamment à l’Est.

Il est vrai qu’une autre possibilité existait. Elle était passée sous silence, au point de laisser croire à un ancien Président de la République qu’il était possible de créer un statut de « réfugié de guerre », donnant ainsi au ministre de l’Intérieur et au premier ministre l’occasion politicienne de prétendre que cela était impossible, en raison du « caractère indivisible » du droit d’asile. Cette triple ignorance de la directive 2001/55 du 20 juillet 2001, transposée en 2003, aurait pu être évitée par une simple lecture de son intitulé : effectivement, elle est « relative à des normes minimales pour l’octroi d’une protection temporaire en cas d’afflux massif de personnes déplacées et à des mesures tendant à assurer un équilibre entre les efforts consentis par les États membres pour accueillir ces personnes et supporter les conséquences de cet accueil ». C’est dire qu’elle pouvait s’appliquer ici.

Inspirée par la crise des Balkans en 1992 qui vit près de 200 000 personnes se réfugier en Allemagne, elle fut utilisée vis-à-vis des 100 000 kosovars qu’elle protégea. En l’espèce, l’intérêt d’y avoir recours pouvait ne pas être négligeable, avec en particulier celui d’affirmer aux opinions publiques réticentes que cette protection était « temporaire », de 1 à 3 ans, même si les droits conférés à ses bénéficiaires sont inférieurs à ceux du statut normal de l’asile et s’il était délicat au sein du mouvement actuel de distinguer le cas syrien des autres nationalités couvertes par la relocalisation.

De fait, on peut penser que la difficulté de convaincre les Etats membres autant que leur refus de constater publiquement la disparité de leurs réponses à l’égard des réfugiés syriens ainsi que l’absence de mécanisme de solidarité à proprement parler expliquent la préférence de la Commission pour une autre voie.

Déposée le 27 mai 2015 dans les conditions déjà décrites par ailleurs, la proposition de décision du Conseil COM (2015) 286 et ses annexes ont pris la forme d’une proposition de décision approuvée par une résolution des représentants des gouvernements des Etats membres. Cette mesure constitue une dérogation temporaire à l’article 13 §1 du règlement n° 604/2013, selon lequel l’Italie  et la Grèce auraient autrement été responsables de l’examen d’une demande de protection internationale. C’est son second intérêt.

L’incapacité du système de Dublin à répondre à une vague de demandeurs de cette importance posait incontestablement une question de principe, celle de la survie d’une règle qui veut que le pays de premier accueil soit responsable du demandeur de protection. De façon structurelle et ancienne, la Grèce s’est avérée incapable d’assumer cette responsabilité depuis longtemps, au point d’en être stigmatisée par la CEDH. En vain. De façon conjoncturelle mais répétée, du printemps arabe aux différents drames de Lampedusa, l’Italie ne s’est pas davantage acquittée de ses obligations. Dès lors que la pression s’est faite irrépressible, la Hongrie et ses voisins ont fait la preuve des mêmes carences.

Puisque les Etats de l’Union de la « ligne de front » n’étaient plus en capacité de faire fonctionner les règles de Dublin, il fallait en tirer les conséquences et le refus des autres Etats de considérer les choses en face n’était plus tenable, en fait comme en droit.

En fait, l’Allemagne comme l’Autriche ou d’autres ont tiré le constat de l’impuissance commune, concrètement, en ouvrant leurs frontières aux demandeurs. Mais il ne faut pas se méprendre, cette compréhension n’est pas une négation de Dublin : la clause de souveraineté de Dublin autorise tout Etat membre à se comporter ainsi et rien dans le droit des réfugiés n’autorise un demandeur à choisir librement sa destination. Preuve en est donnée par la décision allemande de rétablir, le 13 septembre, des contrôles à ses frontières.

En droit donc, l’ensemble des mécanismes d’accueil enclenchés depuis juillet, relocalisation comme réinstallation, se présentent comme étant en conformité avec le régime de Dublin, la dérogation qu’ils proposent étant motivée par l’urgence de la situation. Le tout est accompagné, et l’on y reviendra plus tard, d’une proposition de modification du règlement Dublin COM (2015) 450 établissant un mécanisme permanent de relocalisation en cas de crise.

2. Le contenu du mécanisme de relocalisation d’urgence

Continue reading “La politique européenne d’asile : Strange fruit ? (III, fin)”

La politique européenne d’asile : Strange fruit ? (I)

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON CDRE HERE (9 SEPTEMBRE 2015)

par Henri Labayle,

Les arbres de la chanson de Billie Holiday se reconnaissaient aux corps des pendus qu’ils supportaient. Comme eux, la politique d’asile de l’Union européenne a désormais un visage. Celui d’Aylan, un enfant syrien noyé sur une plage de Méditerranée. Donnant une réalité au macabre décompte des milliers de morts qui l’ont précédé, son impact marque un tournant dans la crise existentielle de la politique commune d’asile, enfin entraînée sur le seul terrain qui vaille : celui des valeurs de l’Union.

La chancelière allemande, Angela Merkel, aura eu le mérite solitaire d’y placer le débat, obligeant ainsi ses partenaires à se situer de part et d’autre de cette ligne rouge : l’indifférence de l’Union peut-elle encore durer ?

Pour y répondre en examinant les dossiers posés sur la table de l’Union, force est de savoir, enfin, de quoi on parle (I). A la lumière de cette clarification préalable, il faut ensuite mesurer l’ampleur de la crise traversée (II) et les réponses que l’Union prétend apporter (III).

I – Etat des lieux

L’emballement médiatique traitant l’exode des demandeurs de protection dans l’Union sidère. Depuis des mois, sinon des années, ce chemin de croix s’est entamé dans l’indifférence des opinions publiques nationales, soigneusement entretenue par des dirigeants peu désireux d’afficher leur indétermination et exploitée par des partis extrémistes oublieux de l’Histoire.

D’où la nécessité de rappeler certaines évidences juridiques (b) et de décrypter les chiffres disponibles (a), analyse indispensable dans un débat public de cette nature.

1. les faits

Les chiffres sont cruels. Il est curieux de les voir si peu analysés pour mesurer le défi posé à la société européenne. Partout, depuis quelques semaines et leur publication dans l’Agenda européen pour la migration, infographies et tableaux des demandes de protection fleurissent, souvent d’ailleurs pour accréditer l’idée d’une vague sans pareille. On ne peut s’arrêter à ce jugement sommaire, sans remise en perspective.

Une première distinction s’impose : il existe une tendance lourde, avérée par les chiffres à la date de la fin 2014, dans les grilles d’Eurostat, les rapports du Bureau européen d’asile (EASO), du HCR ou du Réseau européen des migrations (EMN). Les rapports nationaux la recoupent, comme en France avec celui de l’OFPRA. Sur ces bases, des enseignements sérieux peuvent être dégagés, comme le verra.

S’y ajoute une autre tendance, liée à l’emballement de la crise qui couvait et que l’on refusait de voir en face. Elle est plus difficile à cerner parce que mesurée approximativement chaque mois par Frontex et EASO depuis le mois de janvier 2015. En tout état de cause, elle plonge l’Union dans une situation d’ores et déjà plus grave que celle provoquée par les guerres de l’ex-Yougoslavie et du Kosovo. Plusieurs centaines de milliers de réfugiés avaient alors franchi les frontières, notamment allemandes, pour séjourner durablement dans l’Union, avant un retour.

Ce premier tri ne suffit pas. Analyser la demande actuelle d’asile n’est rationnel qu’en la mettant en perspective avec l’existant. Dit dans les termes technocratiques qu’affectionnent ceux qui nous dirigent, raisonner en termes de flux oblige à se pencher sur le stock.

A l’instant des comptes, un constat est anormal : l’Union ne dispose pas des instruments de mesure et de comparaison qui lui permettrait de faire la vérité sur les comportements des uns et des autres et de fonder ses décisions sur une réalité objective. La faiblesse des outils statistiques mis à disposition des décideurs publics est tout fait surprenante malgré la qualité des travaux d’Eurostat. Si le règlement862/2007 a tardivement imposé aux Etats membres de fournir des informations nécessaires, l’instrument statistique n’est toujours pas à la hauteur des attentes, quoi qu’en pense la Commission (COM 2015 374). Le tableau joint plus bas en fournit la démonstration, à propos pourtant d’une donnée élémentaire qui devrait être maîtrisée : celle du nombre des personnes bénéficiant d’une protection internationale dans l’Union. Rapports nationaux, HCR, Eurostat, Bureau Européen d’asile, Frontex et monde des ONG ne parviennent pas au même résultat, avec des variables considérables. Il n’est d’ailleurs pas possible aujourd’hui d’extraire d’Eurostat le chiffre exact des réfugiés séjournant en 2014 dans l’Union, malgré la grande qualité des informations fournies …

Les raisons en sont multiples : complexité du phénomène, systèmes nationaux et européens développés différemment, sur la base de définitions parfois contradictoires, mauvaise volonté des Etats à révéler leurs turpitudes … Il n’en reste pas moins que, face à une crise politique d’une telle gravité, disposer d’un état des lieux fiable devrait être un préalable à l’action publique, sous peine de fausser les appréciations et la présentation du dossier aux opinions publiques. Faute de l’avoir à disposition et au prix de quelques additions, mieux vaut donc raisonner en termes « d’estimations » qui ont au moins le mérite de traduire des tendances.

A titre d’exemple, la France compte ainsi en 2014 selon le rapport d’activité de l’OFPRA (dont on peut penser qu’il est la source la plus fiable) 192.264 personnes protégées : 178.968 personnes sous statut de réfugié et 18.296 protections subsidiaires. Eurostat en dénombre seulement 144.451 (133.316 et 11.135) parce que les mineurs n’y sont pas comptabilisés tandis que le HCR est plus généreux en déclarant 252.264 personnes protégées en France.

Cependant, même en utilisant la mire la plus haute, celle du HCR, la réalité chiffrée de l’asile est loin de justifier les indignations feintes et les promesses de générosité en trompe l’œil. Qu’on en juge.

Là encore, le cas français est révélateur des enjeux de la crise actuelle. La France compte un peu plus de 66 millions d’habitants, dont, environ, 4 millions d’étrangers. Au sein de cette population, moins de 200 000 personnes bénéficiaient en 2014 d’une protection internationale, selon l’OFPRA. L’opinion publique gagnerait d’ailleurs à connaître leur provenance géographique pour forger son jugement : 38% en provenance du continent asiatique, 30 % du continent africain, 28 % du continent européen. Au sein de ces réfugiés, le Sri Lanka (13%), le Congo (7,6 %), la Russie (7,2%) et le Cambodge (6,9 %) sont les plus représentés. La France « terre d’asile » est donc loin d’être fidèle à la réputation dont elle se flatte, comme en témoigne une comparaison avec les efforts suédois. Pour la seule année 2014, les 20 640 décisions positives contrastent avec les 33 000 décisions suédoises et les 47 555 décisions allemandes …

Un tableau récapitulatif des principales tendances observées dans le monde occidental confirme ces disparités, en particulier entre l’Union européenne et le restant du monde occidental.

La demande d’asile actuelle doit être examinée à la lumière de ces chiffres, même approximatifs. En 2014, la France a reçu 68 500 demandes de protection, soit une baisse de 2,2 % par rapport à 2013. Elle y a donc répondu positivement dans 20 640 cas. Accepter les propositions actuelles de la Commission la conduirait à accueillir 12.000 réfugiés supplémentaires par an, pendant 2 ans. L’équation est simple : 66 millions d’habitants en France / 4 millions d’étrangers / 192.000 réfugiés permanents / 12.000 syriens supplémentaires en un an …

En quoi cette augmentation traduirait-elle soit une invasion, soit un effort hors de portée ? Qui se souvient encore des 130 000 vietnamiens et cambodgiens accueillis en France par Valéry Giscard d’Estaing à la fin des années 70, dans l’empathie générale du monde intellectuel et politique ? Accepter en 2014 dix fois moins de personnes, elles aussi en danger de mort, suscite aujourd’hui la réserve sinon l’hostilité envers ces boat people d’une autre mer, pourtant si proche de nous …

Du point de vue de l’Union, la situation est plus complexe comme nous l’avions déjà exposée ici, àplusieurs reprises. La situation s’est brutalement dégradée en 2014, au plus fort de la crise syrienne, passant de 336 000 demandes en 2012 à 626 715 demandes en 2014. Sachant que le premier semestre 2015 à lui seul équivaut pratiquement au total des demandes de 2013 (432 060), on devine l’extrême gravité de la situation : plus de 100 000 personnes arrivées en Grèce pour le mois de juillet. Les chiffres et projections diverses, du Bureau européen d’asile à Frontex ou au cri d’alarme du Haut Commissaire aux réfugiés, confirment l’urgence absolue d’une réaction.

Au sein des Etats membres, tous ne sont pas soumis à la même pression, qu’ils soient ou non situés sur la route de l’exode, qu’ils constituent ou non des pays de premier accueil et c’est bien là le nœud du problème. Dans l’épicentre du séisme, incontestablement l’Allemagne joue un rôle déterminant, à la fois parce qu’elle est la destination privilégiée par les demandeurs et aussi en raison de sa place dans l’Union. Sans que l’on sache exactement jusqu’à quel point l’évaluation est exacte, le chiffre de 800 000 arrivées en Allemagne a, en effet, été évoqué pour l’année 2015.

Sa position contraste avec celle des autres, pour ce que l’on sait, malgré la vision euphorisante développée par le ministre de l’Intérieur français dans le quotidien Libération et l’autisme du Royaume Uni. Elle consiste tout simplement à appliquer le droit et les traités et à respecter les valeurs du monde occidental.

2. le droit

On ne peut que regretter d’avoir à le rappeler, une fois encore. La protection internationale est un droit de nature autant constitutionnelle que conventionnelle. Présenter l’accueil éventuel des demandeurs de protection comme un choix d’opportunité, en particulier en les assimilant à des « migrants » est une erreur fondamentale. Cet accueil est une obligation légale, sanctionnée par le juge. Pour avoir provoqué cet amalgame lors de la publication de l’Agenda européen, comme nous l’avions souligné, la Commission doit en gérer le prix aujourd’hui.

Outre le droit constitutionnel d’asile, et pour n’en rester qu’à la dimension internationale et européenne, les Etats membres de l’Union sont individuellement et collectivement contraints de faire face à la demande de protection qui leur est faite. D’une part parce que la Convention de Genève de 1951 relative aux réfugiés leur interdit d’agir autrement, notamment en les renvoyant vers des frontières où ils seraient en danger, d’autre part parce que la Convention européenne des droits de l’Homme formule le même interdit, sanctionné par sa Cour, enfin parce que l’Union européenne garantit le droit d’asile dans l’article 18 de sa Charte des droits fondamentaux et proclame dans l’article 19 que « les expulsions collectives sont interdites » et que « nul ne peut être éloigné, expulsé ou extradé vers un État où il existe un risque sérieux qu’il soit  soumis à la peine de mort, à la torture ou à d’autres peines ou traitements inhumains ou dégradants ».

A l’opposé de ce qui peut se concevoir à propos de l’immigration classique, le pouvoir souverain des Etats en matière de refuge et d’asile est donc singulièrement entamé par l’étendue des obligations qui pèsent sur eux, notamment en raison de l’interdiction qui pèse sur eux de se défausser sur d’autres Etats, notamment extérieurs. Interdit qui relativise les découvertes de solutions miracles consistant à externaliser le problème…

Outre l’assurance de ne pas être renvoyés, les demandeurs d’asile ont ainsi droit à accéder à des procédures d’asile justes et efficaces et à une assistance leur permettant de vivre. Forts de ces obligations communes, les Etats membres ont donc adopté un régime d’asile commun, dont la seconde génération de textes régit les procédures, les conditions d’accueil et les règles de qualification. Il constitue, pour l’essentiel, l’objet de la loi 2015-925 du 29 juillet 2015 procédant à la transposition de ces directives. Appeler dans ces conditions à une véritable politique « unifiée » de l’asile comme ce fut le cas au mois d’août à l’Elysée est donc une incongruité.

Le décalage existant entre les faits et le droit est frappant en cette fin d’été. Il est mortel pour ceux qui en sont victimes. Il mérite alors une explication, même sommaire. L’incapacité de l’un des chapitres législatifs les plus poussés du droit de l’Union à répondre au défi de la réalité est en effet surprenante.

En premier lieu, la stratégie de défausse des Etats membres dans leur gestion des demandeurs d’asile semble avoir fait long feu. Le système de Dublin, improprement nommé alors qu’il inspirait déjà la convention d’application de Schengen, établit un traitement unique des demandes d’asile, pour l’essentiel assuré par l’Etat d’entrée dans l’Union. Ce choix a donc fait peser l’essentiel des responsabilités sur les Etats membres situés sur la frontière extérieure de l’espace Schengen, pour le plus grand confort de leurs partenaires continentaux.

Démunis, comme la Grèce, ou pas, comme l’Italie, ils ont assumé tant bien que mal ce rôle, en temps normal. Quitte à prendre quelques libertés avec le respect des valeurs de l’Union, comme la Grèce à propos de l’accueil des demandeurs d’asile ou comme l’Italie de Silvio Berlusconi dans ses pratiques de réadmission vers la Libye de Kadhafi. Condamnées par la CEDH, les pratiques nourrissant cette solution bancale ont volé en éclat dans l’implosion géopolitique qui a frappé le bassin méditerranéen. La guerre en Irak et en Syrie a définitivement interdit de s’accommoder de cette situation et le non paper de Mme Mogherini sur lequel on revient plus loin a, au moins, pour mérite d’exprimer : « Europe must protect refugees in need of protection in a humane way – regardless of which EU country they arrive in« .

Sans doute est-ce implicitement ce que traduit la décision allemande d’ouvrir ses frontières intérieures aux demandeurs en provenance d’autres Etats membres. L’acceptation sereine par l’Allemagne, pour ne pas dire la revendication, de la prise en charge de demandeurs de protection ayant transité par d’autres Etats membres de l’espace Schengen est un désaveu cinglant de la logique Dublin et de son incapacité à faire face à une crise d’une telle ampleur.

Quelques mois auparavant, l’attitude française à l’égard de son voisin à Vintimille était radicalement différente et relativise le discours pharisien tenu par ses autorités actuellement. Face à une population identique, le couple franco-allemand n’aura pas eu la même logique. Là où les valeurs et le droit l’ont ouvertement emporté outre-Rhin, calculs politiciens, absence de courage et discours contradictoires demeurent la règle de conduite, à droite comme à gauche à Paris, le tout sans profit puisqu’à la fin, comme en football, c’est toujours l’Allemagne qui l’emporte …

Sans qu’il soit ici question d’inventorier les failles du droit européen de l’asile, deux carences majeures méritent cependant le rappel.

La première est générale et tient à l’absence de prise en compte sérieuse de la dimension externe de la politique commune d’asile. Celle-ci est « politique » au sens premier du terme, depuis l’Antiquité et les Eglises où l’asile se délivrait, et elle implique une prise de position vis à vis de celui qui persécute. Celle-ci fait défaut dans les actes sinon les paroles, tant vis à vis du régime syrien que de ceux qui le combattent. Silences allemands, changements de pied français, prudences britanniques, lâcheté des autres, par exemple lorsque certains Etats membres récusent toute compréhension parce qu’ils n’ont déstabilisé ni l’Afghanistan ni l’Irak, telle est l’impasse actuelle de l’Union.

La faillite de la politique extérieure de l’Union et de ses membres est donc un véritable problème. La qualité de personne protégée est en effet, a priori, une qualité précaire. Que disparaisse la menace qui pèse sur son bénéficiaire et la protection cède, ipso facto, ce qu’il est surprenant de ne voir mis en relief par personne. Si la guerre au Proche Orient, et en Syrie en particulier, est la principale cause de l’exode, sa cessation est susceptible de renverser la tendance et de permettre le retour. Focaliser l’attention sur le retour des immigrés en situation irrégulière et ne dire mot de celui des personnes déplacées n’est pas de bonne politique, sauf à considérer qu’une nouvelle Palestine est en train de se constituer, en Irak (250 000 réfugiés), au Liban (1 113 000 réfugiés), en Jordanie (630 000 réfugiés), en Turquie (2 millions de réfugiés).

Dès lors, agir sur les causes, comme le souhaitent les partisans d’une intervention, et sur l’environnement de la zone de conflit, de la Turquie aux pays arabes, est une condition de l’efficacité. Le silence assourdissant de l’Union comme de ses membres sur ce point est troublant, notamment et y compris à Berlin. La timidité avec laquelle le « non-paper » de la Haute représentante en traite explique le silence poli avec lequel les ministres allemand, italien et français en prennent acte.

La seconde carence est ponctuelle, propre à l’asile et à la crise actuelle. Les milliers de morts en Méditerranée, plus de 3 000 selon le HCR, et ceux de la route des Balkans posent une question centrale, remettant en cause l’architecture de la politique d’asile actuelle : l’absence de voie légale ouverte aux demandeurs de protection. Celle-ci leur permettrait de ne pas risquer leur vie pour exercer ce qui est, rappelons-le, un droit, celui de voir examiner leur demande. Comment comprendre ainsi que des candidats à l’asile demeurant en Syrie, désireux de demander protection à la France, se voient opposer par les services français une preuve de leur capacité à retourner dans leur pays en vertu de l’article 21 du Code des visas ?

En d’autres termes, l’Union est ici au bout d’un processus où elle prétendu construire une politique commune dont elle laissait en fait la gestion aux Etats membres, particulier aux frontières extérieures de l’Union. Ici, la crise la conduit à clairement poser le débat en termes de repli national et intergouvernemental, sonnant le glas de l’Espace de liberté, ou bien d’avancée de type pré-fédéral mutualisant les charges et les responsabilités, notamment et y compris au moyen d’agences exécutives en charge des demandeurs d’asile.

C’est l’effet révélateur d’une crise interne profonde.

The impact of the EU law on Italian criminal procedure law in investigations on EU fraud

ORIGINAL IN ITALIAN.

(Translated by Dalila Delorenzi, FREE-Group Trainee)

by Andrea Venegoni (*)

A reflection on the issue of the influence of European law on procedure criminal law may instinctively lead to think of the most recent developments in case law at European level that have affected and are affecting also the typical categories of the Italian procedural system.

As an example, the issue of “res judicata” can be taken into account. It is common opinion that its binding effect is gradually eroding as a result of transposition in the internal system of jurisprudential principles established by the European Courts (e.g the cases Dorigo or Scoppola ). Another example may come from the “ne bis in idem” principle which is gradually coloring of meanings that were unthinkable a few years ago, also thanks to the role of supranational courts.

But, to be honest, if that had been the subject of my speech, the same would not be fully consistent with the title of the seminar that refers specifically to the influence of the EU law on the domestic criminal procedure law. Indeed in the above mentioned evolutions the ECHR system – which as it is known, is something other than the European Union system – has played and still plays a fundamental role. In this case, therefore, the title of the seminar should have referred to the “European” law in general and not just that of the EU.

I therefore focused my attention on EU law and its impact on criminal investigations in fraud matters within the Community, not only for formal reasons, because it was the specific scope of the seminar, but also for another more substantial reason.

More precisely, all legislative and jurisprudential developments occurred in criminal law and its procedure by supranational European legal systems are substantially aimed at creating a common space of justice, with a view to recognise guarantees, common rights and for the purposes of a better circulation of evidence. If this is true, it does exist an area, a sector, where this process has been already realised or, at least, realised in a better way than elsewhere.

This is precisely the field of protection of the EU financial interests. In this sector, since the late ‘90s the European Union has put in place a series of legislative instruments to assist the investigations, and in particular the cross-border enquiries, and at the same time to protect the rights of the people involved, with no equal compared to any other field. As such, if the European Union is informed by the will to create, among other issues, also a common space of justice, both criminal and civil – as said in the founding treaty (i.e. Maastricht Treaty, 1992) – then we may affirm that, since more than 16 years, this purpose has been largely achieved, with specific modalities, in the field of the protection of EU’s financial interests (hereinafter “PIF Area”), even if just few legal practitioners have realised it.

This was because the PIF sector has always been essential to the existence of the Union and for the accomplishment of its purposes. Without effective protection of its own finances, the Union might not have the necessary funds not only to manage its administration, but also to grant them to the States or other beneficiaries. Indeed this is necessary for the realization of the great goals the Union intends achieving – sometimes with mixed success – Europe wide and worldwide, such as social cohesion and economic development, the progress of scientific research, environmental protection, the fight against poverty in third countries.

Therefore, the protection of its resources has always been essential for the Union, and since the conducts affecting such interest may constitute both irregularities at the administrative level, and criminal offenses, the relevant legislation at European level has always unfolded in between the so called First and Third Pillar in the European institutional framework after the Maastricht Treaty. In simple words, the First Pillar covered interventions in the Union’s own policies that did not concern the criminal law; the Third Pillar, on the contrary, was just about facilitating the judicial cooperation in criminal law.

Nevertheless, before going any further, it has to be clarified what the so called “PIF Area” is, to fill of content concepts that otherwise risk to be only theoretical. For the purpose of this presentation, also to avoid getting into technicalities of the Union’s Financial Regulation, with a view to simplifying it may be easier to refer to the Union budget sheet items. Indeed, since the early 70s, the Union has a budget with their own revenues and expenditures.

Revenues consist in customs duties and agricultural levies charged on import and export of goods (the so-called own resources), a percentage of each EU country’s standardised value-added tax revenue and an additional sum provided by the Member States proportionally to each respective gross national income. Therefore every kind of conduct tending to avoid the payment and collection of duties and agricultural levies affects the EU financial interests. In our system, such conducts constitute the criminal offence of smuggling. Equally, the conducts aiming at evading the VAT payment are harmful for the EU budget. This category includes, for example, the so-called VAT carousel fraud, which still today are matter of interest for several Italian prosecutor offices, like they have been in the recent years.

Actually, the issue of VAT is very sensitive and it is necessary, for sake of providing with a complete information, to mention that according to an opinion that is strengthening at the level of the Member States, and partly also of the European Parliament, in the negotiations on legislative proposals under way, such tax would be exclusively national, and only indirectly of Union relevance, and for this reason it should be considered outside the PIF area (1). However it must be said that this view is contradicted, for example, in the case law of the Court of Justice that has even recently stated that the application of VAT involves the Union’s financial interests (see Akberg Fransson case C-617/10). Continue reading “The impact of the EU law on Italian criminal procedure law in investigations on EU fraud”

The General Principles of EU Administrative Procedural Law

THE TEXT BELOW IS AN EXCERPT OF A STUDY ACCESSIBLE HERE

Nota Bene: Upon request by the European Parliament JURI Committee this in-depth analysis explains what general principles of EU administrative procedural law are, and how they can be formulated in the recitals of a Regulation on EU administrative procedure.
Authors: Diana-Urania Galetta, Professor of Administrative Law and European Administrative Law, University of Milan, , Herwig C. H. Hofmann, Professor of European and Transnational Public Law, Jean Monnet Chair, University of Luxembourg, Oriol Mir Puigpelat, Professor of Administrative Law, University of Barcelona and Jacques Ziller, Professor of EU law, University of Pavia

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY : Background
The Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament has requested an In-depth Analysis on “The general principles of EU administrative procedural law”. The In-depth Analysis is intended to be presented at a meeting of the Working Group on Administrative Law.
Aim
. The Analysis puts forward drafting proposals for the general principles of EU administrative procedural law to be included in the Recitals of a draft Regulation on EU Administrative procedures. More specifically, the Analysis tries to clarify the content of the general principles of EU administrative procedural law and suggest the most accurate formulation for the corresponding recitals.
The following general principles, which are related to the Right to good administration embedded in Article 41 Charter, to the principle of an open, efficient and independent European administration enunciated in Article 298 TFEU are translated into recitals: ¹ Access to information and access to documents; Access to the file ; Duty of care; Data protection; Data quality; Effective remedy; Equal treatment and non-discrimination; Fair hearing; Fairness; Good administration; Impartiality; Legal certainty; Legality; Legitimate expectations; Participatory democracy; Proportionality; Reason giving; Rule of Law; Timeliness; Transparency.
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2.2. Structure and wording of recitals

Which general principles of EU law need to be referred to in the recitals of an EU regulation on Administrative Procedures depends on the content of the substantive provisions of the regulation. The purpose of establishing an EU regulation on administrative procedures is to improve the quality of the EU’s legal system by fostering compliance with the general principles of EU law in the reality of fragmentation between sector-specific procedures and the reality of the multi-jurisdictional nature and pluralisation of actors involved in the implementation of EU policies.
Fragmentation has often resulted in a lack of transparency, predictability, intelligibility and trust in EU administrative and regulatory procedures and their outcome, especially from the point of view of citizens.
A codification of administrative procedures can contribute to simplifying the legal system of the Union, enhancing legal certainty, filling gaps in the legal system and thereby ideally contributing to compliance with the rule of law. Overall, it can be expected that establishing enforceable rights of individuals in procedures that affect them, contributes to compliance with principles of due process and fosters procedural justice.
Adopting such a regulation further has the potential to contribute not only to the clarity of the legal rights and obligations of individuals and participating institutions, offices, bodies and agencies, but also to the transparency and effectiveness of the legal system as a whole. An EU Regulation on Administrative Procedures has the potential to contribute to the objectives of clarification of rights and obligations. It also contributes to simplification of EU law by ensuring that procedures can follow one single rule-book and better regulation by allowing to improve the overall legislative quality.
The recitals of an EU regulation on administrative procedures will therefore contain various principles of EU law.
When identifying the principles of EU law which should be referred to in the recitals not only is it important to provide a list of principles but also to give them some order. In establishing such order, it has to be taken into account that there is neither an established ‘hierarchy’ of principles, nor do all general and foundational principles of EU law work in the same way. The important aspect of general principles is that they serve to guide the interpretation of legal rules of all levels of the EU’s legal system and fill gaps. In that context, the reference to a general principle of EU law in the recitals serves to reiterate its importance in interpreting a legal text such as the regulation on EU administrative procedure. It also serves to clarify which principles have been balanced by the legislature in establishing specific provisions of the regulation.

However, in order to structure the approach to the reference to general principles of EU law in the recitals of the EU regulation on administrative procedure, the various principles can be grouped. Taking into account the very nature of recitals our proposal is mainly grounded in the idea that the recitals not only have a legal purpose (of interpreting the norms in the regulation), but should also have a ‘citizen friendly’ informative purpose. The principles in the recitals therefore need to be presented in a way that may prompt the non-expert to read them.
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The proposed recitals are not comprehensive: they are limited to the scope of clarifying the content of general principles of EU administrative procedure law, what other general principles are relevant to the implementation and interpretation of administrative procedure rules, and why those principles are important. Other components need to be added to the recitals such as, to name one example, the legal basis of the act.

Recitals (1) to (5) are intended to explain to a broader public why those principles matter. Recitals (7) to (22) attempt to explain what the content and meaning of those principles are. Recital (6) briefly alludes to internal principles which are very important for the implementation of the principles mentioned in Article 298 (1) TFEU of an open, efficient and independent administration without necessarily creating enforceable subjective rights; contrary to the other principles those internal principles are not further developed in their enunciation in so far as they do not necessarily correspond to subjective rights. One or more specific recitals might be devoted to those principles once the articles of the operative part of the Regulation will have been drafted.
The order in which those principles are presented derives from grounds which are explained in section 1.2 of this note. The recitals include footnotes that are obviously not intended to remain in the proposal of a Regulation. Their purpose is to give the most useful references (mainly about case law) to the reader of this note.
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3.2. Proposed Recitals Continue reading “The General Principles of EU Administrative Procedural Law”