Category: 3.3 Free movement

“Foreign Fighters” and EU implementation of the UNSC resolution 2178. Another case of “Legislate in haste, repent at leisure…” ? (2)

by Dalila DELORENZI (FREE Group Trainee – Original in Italian)

1. Foreword
As the hostilities in Syria and Iraq continue and terrorism activities worldwide seem to be on the rise, EU Member States are increasingly confronted with the problem of aspiring and returning ‘foreign fighters’ as described already in this blog HERE. More precisely, in the EU the term is used to indicate European citizens who, after leaving to join jihadist groups, may have become further radicalised and acquired combat experience, and therefore be capable of carrying out deadly terrorist attacks once they return to Europe.

Such phenomenon is anything but new; however, its scale certainly is: as illustrated by the rise of the terrorist group calling itself “Islamic state”, the phenomenon has acquired an entirely new dimension – according to the EU intelligence sources 19% of the total fighters originated from the EU.

It explains then the wide perception of these individuals as a serious threat to the security of both individual Member States and the EU as a whole – especially in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks occurred in Brussels[1], Paris[2], Copenhagen[3].

Broadly speaking , a different way to envision human mobility and checks at external borders of Schengen has come to light. Whereas initially, they were rather conceived to protect the Schengen area from threats coming from country outside the Schengen zone, now such threat to security is deemed to be already inside the EU, due to the fact that most of the time militants returning to Europe possess the nationality of a Member State.

2. EU response Continue reading ““Foreign Fighters” and EU implementation of the UNSC resolution 2178. Another case of “Legislate in haste, repent at leisure…” ? (2)”

(Amnesty International Briefing ) FENCED OUT : HUNGARY’S VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHTS OF REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED HERE 

INTRODUCTION

“[W]e would like Europe to be preserved for the Europeans. But there is something we would not just like but we want because it only depends on us: we want to preserve a Hungarian Hungary” Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, 25 July 20151

“We are also humans. Before we lived in peace and we have had our lives and dreams torn apart by wars and greed of the governments.” Hiba Almashhadani, an Iraqi refugee, 21 September 20152

In the first eight months of 2015, 161,000 people claimed asylum in Hungary. The Office for Immigration and Nationality has estimated that two thirds of those arriving3 were asylum-seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq who entered the country irregularly.4 These are, unquestionably, large numbers and they have presented Hungary with considerable, if not entirely unforeseeable, challenges. Hungary’s response to these challenges has, however, been hugely problematic. While Hungary is bearing much of the brunt of the EU’s structurally unbalanced asylum regime, it has also shown a singular unwillingness to engage in collective EU efforts to address these shortcomings and participate in initiatives designed to redistribute the responsibility for receiving and processing asylum seekers, notably the relocation and “hotspot” processing schemes that the European Commission and Council have been proposing.

Instead, Hungary has moved in recent months to construct fences along its southern borders, criminalise irregular entry to its territory and expedite the return of asylum seekers and refugees to Serbia, through its inclusion on a list of safe countries of transit. The cumulative effect, and desired consequence, of these measures will be to render Hungary a refugee protection free zone. Ultimately, Hungary’s attempts to insulate itself against a regional, and wider global, refugee crisis can only be achieved at the expense of the respect its international human rights and refugee law obligations. In fact, this is already happening; only the completion of a fence along the Croatian border is preventing Hungary’s isolationist migration policies from reaching fruition.

Hungary’s determination to avoid its responsibilities towards refugees is not just a Hungarian problem. It is also an EU problem. Hungary’s policies are not preventing entry to the EU, they are merely displacing the routes refugees and migrants are taking to reach it. Hungary’s policies also represent a structural threat to the rule of law and the respect for human rights that other member states and EU institutions cannot afford to ignore. The EU should therefore engage Hungary in a formal discussion, as foreseen by Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union, with a view to bringing its migration and asylum policies in line with EU and other international law obligations and ensuring that Hungary participates fully in collective EU initiatives and reforms designed to address the current refugee crisis, while receiving the considerable support it needs to do so.

THE UNFOLDING OF THE “CRISIS”

On 15 September 2015 the Hungarian government declared a “crisis situation caused by mass immigration”.5 On the same day, the construction of a fence on the border with Serbia was finished and amendments to the Criminal Code and Asylum Law, making it an offence to enter the country through the border fence and establishing “transit zones” at the border, entered into effect.

On 21 September, the Hungarian Parliament adopted further amendments to the Police Act and the Act on National Defence. These extend the powers of the police in situations of “crisis caused by mass immigration” to block roads, ban or restrain the operation of public institutions, shut down areas and buildings and restrain or ban the entering and leaving of such places. The new measures authorise the army to support the police securing the border in the crisis situation and to use rubber bullets, tear gas grenades and pyrotechnical devices.6

On 22 September, the Hungarian Parliament adopted a resolution which stated, among other things, that Hungary should defend its borders by “every necessary means” against “waves of illegal immigration”. The resolution stated: “[W]e cannot allow illegal migrants to endanger the jobs and social security of the Hungarian people. We have the right to defend our culture, language, and values.”7

The number of asylum seekers in Hungary in 2015, represents a significant increase on the 42,777 applications registered in 2014. 8 The Hungarian government had, however, long been received signals of an expected increase in asylum applications. As early as 2012 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency) as well as NGOs were calling for an improvement of the reception facilities for asylum-seekers in Hungary and the need to bring them in line with the EU reception standards.9

Instead of introducing measures in line with these calls, the government started to work on measures to keep refugees and migrants out of the country. In 2015 it spent 3.2 million Euros10 on a “national consultation on immigration and terrorism”11 in the course of which it distributed a questionnaire to over eight million citizens seeking answers to questions such as whether or not those who cross the borders illegally should be detained for a period longer than 24 hours.12 Another 1.3 million Euros was spent on an anti-refugee billboard campaign that included messages such as “If you come to Hungary, don’t take the jobs of Hungarians” or “If you come to Hungary, you have to respect our culture!”.13 98 million Euros was spent on the construction of the border fence with Serbia.14 The 2015 budget of the Office of Immigration and Nationality responsible for reception of asylum seekers and processing applications was 27.5 million Euros.15

The government did however move swiftly with the adoption of measures aiming at keeping refugees and migrants out and facilitating their return. On 1 August 2015, an amendment of the Asylum Law16 entered into force which authorized the government to issue a lists of safe countries of origin and safe third countries of transit. Serbia, Macedonia and EU member states, including Greece, are considered safe by the Hungarian authorities as a result of these changes, meaning that asylum applications by people transiting through from these countries can be sent back to them following expedited proceedings.17 On 15 September another set of amendments came into effect. They criminalized “illegal entry” through the border fence and introduced “transit zones” for asylum-seekers at the border and other changes.18

On 17 September, the Minister of Interior ordered a “partial border closure” of the border crossings at the Röszke/Horgoš motorway and at the express road for a period of 30 days. It justified it as a measure “in the interest of the protection of public security”.19 During the period of the partial border closure, it was not possible for passengers, vehicles and cargo to cross the state border between Hungary and Serbia. The border was re-opened on 20 September after the Hungarian and Serbian Ministries of Interior “succeeded in finding a solution to opening the border crossing station and ensuring the continued flow of passenger and cargo traffic.”20

Following the effective sealing off of the border with Serbia in mid-September, refugees and migrants started entering Hungary through the border with Croatia through the crossings at Beremend21 and Zakány.22 By the beginning of October an average of about 4,000 people were entering on a daily basis according to the Hungarian police.23 The measures taken by the Hungarian government have therefore served primarily to redirect the flow of refugees and migrants, not stop it. However, Hungary has already begun constructing a similar fence along the Croatian border, and has already almost completed the laying of barbed wire along its entirety.24 Once a full-scale fence has been constructed, asylum-seekers will effectively no longer be able to access Hungarian territory and protection proceedings. Those that do succeed in crossing the fence will be liable to prosecution – and return to Serbia or Croatia.25

INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM OF HUNGARY’S MIGRATION POLICIES

Hungary’s draconian response to the increase of the number of refugees and migrants entering the country has been roundly criticised by international human rights bodies.

On 15 September, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland wrote to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, expressing concerns over the legislation adopted “in the context of the migration crisis“. He asked for assurances that Hungary is still committed to its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Secretary General also warned that Hungary cannot derogate from its obligation to protect the right to life, prohibition of torture and other rights.26

On 17 September, the UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that amendments of the Criminal Code and the Asylum Law which entered into force on 15 September are incompatible with the human rights commitments binding on Hungary. “This is an entirely unacceptable infringement of the human rights of refugees and migrants. Seeking asylum is not a crime, and neither is entering a country irregularly.” The UN Human Rights Commissioner further observed that some of the actions carried out by the Hungarian authorities, such as denying entry, arresting, summarily rejecting and returning refugees, using disproportionate force on migrants and refugees, as well as reportedly assaulting journalists and seizing video documentation, amounted to clear violations of international law.27 He also noted “the xenophobic and anti-Muslim views that appear to lie at the heart of current Hungarian Government policy”.

The response of the EU institutions has been less unequivocal. The EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopolous, declared during his visit to Hungary on 17 September that “[The EU] will work collectively to protect the Union’s external borders.” Hungary, he noted, “is doing part in this work… [although the EC does] not always agree with the means used.” Commissioner Avramopolous expressed a commitment “to work with [EU’s] neighbours – establishing a common list of safe countries of origin and intensifying cooperation with the Western Balkan countries and Turkey.” At the same time, however, he acknowledged a “moral duty… inscribed in international and European laws” to offer protection to those who need it.28

METHODOLOGY AND PURPOSE OF THIS BRIEFING Continue reading “(Amnesty International Briefing ) FENCED OUT : HUNGARY’S VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHTS OF REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS”

AN INSUBSTANTIAL PAGEANT FADING: A VISION OF EU CITIZENSHIP UNDER THE AG’S OPINION IN C-308/14 COMMISSION V UK

PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS on Wednesday, 7 October 2015

by Charlotte O’Brien,

Senior Lecturer, York Law School

The political message being sent by irate governments to ‘back off’ from national welfare systems’ assumed prerogative to discriminate between home nationals and EU nationals is being received and applied with alacrity by the Court of Justice. The current direction of travel resiles from earlier progressive visions of EU citizenship, and in C-140/12 Brey, C-333/13 Dano and C-67/14 Alimanovic we see that which was once ‘destined to be [our] fundamental status’ receding ever further from view. Advocate General Cruz Villalón’s Opinion in Commission v UK continues the retreat, arguing that the Commission’s action challenging the UK right to reside test for family benefits should be dismissed. The result may, in the current environment, be unsurprising. But getting there with existing legal tools is problematic.

The Opinion contains a number of uncomfortable contortions to give undue deference to the national rules, and avoid tackling the underlying conflict of rules and approaches. It represents quite startling judicial activism in embroidering the legislation with unwritten limitations as to personal scope, tinkering with the subject matter, and asserting an unwritten licence to discriminate whenever something smells like a welfare benefit. The effect is as though the Court’s new teleological guiding principle should be that the legislature would have wanted at all costs to avoid offending the UK government.

The UK right to reside (RTR) test prevents any EU national who does not meet the criteria in Art 7 Directive 2004/38 from receiving Child Benefit or Child Tax Credit, both of which were accepted as being ‘family benefits’, so ‘pure social security’ (rather than special non-contributory benefits in Brey, Dano and Alimanovic) under Regulation 883/2004. The Commission challenged the test’s lawfulness on two grounds – that it imported extra conditions into the ‘habitual residence’ test, to undermine the effects of Regulation 883/2004, and that it is discriminatory since it only applies to non-UK citizens. The AG’s Opinion is remarkable, in its ability to reject both without engaging with either. This analysis deals with four key issues arising from the Opinion: (i) stitching, splicing and embroidering Reg 883/2004; (ii) the ‘inherent’, ‘inevitable’ and ex ante discrimination fudge; (iii) the parallel reality in which the UK does not presume unlawful residence; and (iv) the failure to notice that the UK automatically refuses social assistance to those reliant on ‘sufficient resources’.

(i) stitching, splicing and embroidering Regulation 883/2004

The AG is at some pains to determine whether the ‘right to reside’ test is part of the habitual residence test (HRT), or a separate test added on, suggesting that it is only if it is presented as the former, does the Commission have a case. As the UK government ‘distanced’ itself during proceedings from the combined test approach, and argued that it was a separate test of lawful residence, so the AG commented that the Commission’s case was ‘weakening over the course of the dispute’. Indeed, on the basis that the test was ‘independent’ of the HRT, the AG argued that the first ground should be dismissed. This is perplexing. It seems to be a matter of regulatory semantics whether the RTR is part of the HRT, or is applied as well as the HRT, if the effect – to undermine Regulation 883/2004 – is the same.

For the record, the conclusion that they are separate tests is unconvincing anyway. For all benefits with an official ‘habitual residence test’ the regulations provide that a claimant cannot be habitually resident unless she has the right to reside in the CTA (Income Support (General) Regulations 1987, reg 21AA; Jobseeker Allowance Regulations 1996, reg 85A; Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008, reg 70(2); State Pension Credit Regulations, reg 2; see DWP, DMG, 072771). For CB and CTC the terminology is slightly different – the words ‘habitually resident’ are not used, but a person must be treated as being in the UK. And to be treated as being in the UK, you have to have a right to reside (Child Benefit Regulations 2006, Reg 23(4)(a); Tax Credits (Residence) Regulations 2003, Reg. 3(5); CBTM10010 – Residence and immigration: residence – introduction).

However, whether we treat the RTR as part of habitual residence, or as an extra test, the effect in both cases is to add conditions onto the circumstances in which a person is treated as meeting the ‘residence’ criteria of Regulation 883/2004. That Regulation offers a clear, exhaustive list for allocating ‘competence’ of Member States for benefits, providing a residual category for the economically inactive, at Art 11(3)(e) in which the Member State of residence is competent. Once competence has been established, that State is then responsible for the payment of family benefits, subject to the non-discrimination provision.

The scheme of the Regulation is intentionally broader than that of Directive 2004/38 – applying a different personal scope for a start (covering all those who ‘are or have been subject to the legislation of one or more Member States’), and covering pensioners, those between jobs, those who might fall outside of the Dir 2004/38 Article 7(3) retention provisions – essentially, those who should be covered by social security provisions. To apply the right to reside test is to hack down the rationae personae of the Regulation to emulate that of Directive 2004/38 – an approach not endorsed, implied or merited in the Regulation. The AG’s assertion that law should not exist in ‘separate compartments’ as justification for splicing the instruments together and embroidering an extra condition into the Regulation rather too easily ignores the different purposes and scopes of the instruments. Similarly, the different material issues – the restriction of social assistance now embodied in Directive 2004/38, versus award of social security, are inappropriately assimilated. The AG notes, apparently approvingly, the UK’s assertion that ‘the two benefits at issue in the present case have some characteristics of social assistance’. This goes unexamined, and helps form the context in which the different nature of social security, and different subject matter of the Regulation, is effectively ignored. In sum, we have an approach in which if a benefit is a ‘bit like’ social assistance, and a legal instrument is in roughly the same area as Directive 2004/38, then unwritten restrictions kick in.

In the specific case of family benefits, the Regulation’s residual category should provide a guarantee that families do not fall through the cracks and find themselves disentitled to any family benefits, since many Child Benefits are tied to residence. This also serves the ‘bonus’ purpose of protecting children, who are not the agents of migration, and who the legislature and the Court have hitherto taken pains to protect from suffering the penalties of their parents’ choices and/or misfortunes – either out of an interest in child welfare, or as an instrumental way of avoiding disincentives (risks to their children’s welfare) for workers to migrate.

Here it is worth emphasising that when we speak of falling through the cracks, we mostly speak of people who have been working (rather than those who have never worked). The right to reside test results in a strict bifurcation between those ‘working’ and those not. The rules on retention of worker status are stringent and exclusionary, so that people can be working and contributing for many years and still fall over welfare cliff edges. Regulation 883/2004 should offer some protection to their pre-school children in such cases, even where Directive 2004/38 is (according to emerging case law) rather harsher to the parents.

However, in the AG’s approach we can see the Directive, having already been transformed from an instrument to promote free movement into a instrument to prevent benefit tourism (Dano); being promoted to the status of a fundamental principle of limitation, to be (retrospectively) mainstreamed into other (higher) legislative instruments – exerting restrictions that are not there written.

(ii) the ‘inherent’, ‘inevitable’ and ex ante discrimination fudge;

The AG avoided dealing with the question of whether the RTR test discriminates contrary to Regulation 883/2004, by finding that the RTR prevented the Regulation from being applicable at all – apparently treating ex ante discrimination as de facto lawful. This conceptual approach is deeply problematic – can Member States really avoid the non-discrimination obligations contained in legislation by applying discriminatory gateways to access that legislation?

As noted above, once competence of a Member State has been established for the purposes of Regulation 883/2004, it is then – according to that instrument, bound by non-discrimination duties (Article 4). However, under the proposed approach, there will be people for whom no Member State has competence, because competence is to be determined according to a set of restrictions in a completely different instrument which apply a different concept to a different set of people for a different set of benefits. And if they are in this way found not be within any State’s competence, the question of discrimination is avoided.

To the extent that the AG does engage with non-discrimination duties, it is part of an imprecise discussion about the likelihood of the lawfulness of curbing benefits from non-nationals (benefit restrictions are ‘traditionally associated’ with requirements of legal residence). In drawing upon Dano and Brey, the fact that those cases dealt with benefits therein defined as social assistance is swept aside somewhat as the AG finds ‘there is nothing in those judgments to indicate that such findings apply exclusively to the social assistance benefits or the special non-contributory cash benefits with which those cases were concerned and not to other social benefits’. But there is plenty to indicate that social security benefits should be treated differently in their coverage in a different piece of legislation. It is surely very odd to suggest that the Court should list those instruments on which it was not ruling.

Recognising that the rules do treat UK nationals and non nationals differently, the Opinion makes some rhetorical points about discrimination as part of the natural ecosystem of free movement – ‘one way of looking at it is that this difference in treatment as regards the right of residence is inherent in the system and, to a certain extent, inevitable… In other words, the difference in treatment between UK nationals and nationals of other Member States stems from the very nature of the system.’ None of this does anything to address the question of the problem of direct versus indirect discrimination – the latter being rather easier to justify. It almost suggests that some degree of direct discrimination has to be accepted as a matter of pragmatism. Indeed, the characterisation of the rules asindirectly discriminating on the grounds of nationality is one of the most contentious issues in the case. Much as in C-184/99 Grzelczyk, an extra condition is imposed only upon non-nationals. Hiding behind the banner of indirect discrimination seems unconvincing if we posit a brief thought experiment. Imagine all EU national men automatically had an RTR, but all EU national women had to pass the RTR test; that could not be described asindirectly discriminating on the grounds of sex. While it could be argued that nationality is a different type of ground to sex, and so different differences are acceptable, the fact that we are dealing with direct discrimination remains. And this is not explored. The only thing that needs justification, under this analysis, is not the test, but the procedural checking, which we look at next.

(iii) the parallel reality in which the UK does not presume unlawful residence

The AG states that it cannot be inferred that the UK presumes that claimants are unlawfully resident, adding that European citizenship would preclude such a presumption, and that claimants should not systematically be required to prove they are not unlawfully resident.

However, the whole claims process in the UK does systematically require proof of claimants that they are (not un)lawfully resident. The right to reside test takes the limitations of Directive 2004/38 and makes them a priori conditions of the existence of the right to move and reside. There is no general citizenship-based right to reside that can be modified by limitations, with some discretion. The conditions come first, and must be demonstrably met, in each and every case. The UK’s assertion that ‘In cases in which there is doubt as to whether the claimant has a right of residence, an individual assessment of the claimant’s personal circumstances is carried out’ rather masks the process of assessment that decision makers are required to undertake according to the decision maker guidance on establishing whether a claimant really is or was a worker – using the UK’s own definition. That definition is flawed in itself, requiring evidence to meet a higher threshold than set in EU law, and the evidential hurdles can be considerable. Even for the most straightforward cases of worker, proof is required that earnings have been at or above the Minimum Earnings Threshold for a continuous period of at least three months. Those with variable earnings are expected to provide considerable evidence if they wish to ‘prove’ their right to reside. In cases where HMRC have reason to doubt conditions continue to be met for tax credit awards, they issue further, penetrating compliance checks, and in the UK government’s Budget Policy costings document, the government announced that the restrictions on benefits ‘will be augmented by additional HMRC compliance checks to improve detection of when EEA migrants cease to be entitled to these benefits. The checks will apply to all EEA migrant claims’. The system is set up to make the conditions constitutive of the right to free movement, effectively requiring all claimants to prove that they are not unlawfully resident, notwithstanding the apparent ‘background’ of EU citizenship, and claims are subject to systematic checking, notwithstanding Article 14(2) of Directive 2004/38.

The AG however, took the position that such checks are not systematic, but may be indirectly discriminatory, but that they were lawful, with the briefest of nods to justification – as though the mere mention of the UK’s public finances is sufficient to provoke a reverential hush, genuflection and swift retreat from the subject:

‘without any need to pursue the argument further, I consider that the necessity of protecting the host Member State’s public finances, (75) an argument relied on by the United Kingdom, (76) is in principle sufficient justification for a Member State to check the lawfulness of residence at that point.’

No data, it seems, is required.

Nor is any engagement with the question as to whether purely economic aims are legitimate aims for the purpose of justifying discrimination or restricting a fundamental freedom – on this, see AG Sharpston’s Opinion in C-73/08 Bressol.

(iv) the failure to notice that the UK automatically refuses social assistance to those reliant on ‘sufficient resources’.

The AG rounds up the Opinion by noting that in any case, the economically inactive are not completely hung out to dry – they should have their circumstances examined to determine whether they have sufficient resources not to become a burden on the public purse. Here, the AG emphasises that mere recourse to public funds should not bar a claimant from having a right to reside based on sufficient resources, and that their case should be assessed as to whether they are an ‘excessive’ burden. This is all very well, but speaks to a rather different reality to that experienced in the UK, in which the economically inactive are automatically barred from claiming social assistance because they are automatically treated as not having sufficient resources at the point of claim. Moreover, the Upper Tribunal has suggested that ‘sufficient resources’ means sufficient to provide for the migrant’s family for five years; a migrant cannot claim to have had sufficient resources for a short period of time between jobs if those resources would not have lasted for five years.

In short, the Court should be wary of following the AG’s lead in backing off from the apparently prohibited area of UK welfare benefits quite so hastily. The Regulation’s personal and material scope, and purpose, cannot simply be ignored or modified, nor can the Directive be transformed into an all-encompassing, higher principle, through pro-Member State judicial activism. The right to reside test adds conditions to the application of the Regulation’s provisions, and it does so in a directly discriminatory way. The Court must address these points honestly; if it is prevented from doing so by the political wind – or if it too conjures up a default forcefield around benefits regardless of type, and gives licence to ‘inevitable’ discrimination – the ramifications will tell not only upon claimants, their children, the vanishing strands of EU citizenship and the obstructed freedom to move, but also upon the Court’s credibility.

Repetita Juvant ? The EDPS 2nd Opinion on the EU system of collection of passenger name records (PNR)

Foreword:
The systematic collection for prevention of terrorism of Air traveller’s personal data (PNR) from Airlines, Travel Agencies and Computer Reservation Systems started in the US, Australia, Canada after 9/11 and was considered illegal by the European Data Protection authorities as well by the European Parliament who challenged in 2004 before the Court of Justice the first EU-US agreement in this matter as well as the Commission Declaration (“Adequacy Finding”) which considered the adequate the condition of treatment of EU passengers data on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Court of Justice Judgment recognized in 2006 that the Commission’s “Adequacy Finding” and the EU-US Agreement were not founded on the correct legal basis but did not examined the EP plea on the fact that the agreement could had infringed the fundamental right to protection of personal data because of lack of clarity and of its incompatibility with a democratic society (at the time required by art.8 of the ECHR)

Therefore it has to be noted that already in 2004 the Commission considered that also the EU should develop its own PNR system for security purposes and after the CJ ruling decided to renegotiate with the US (on a security related legal basis) a new PNR agreements which explicitly made reference to the possibility of exchanging PNR data as soon as the EU would had has its own PNR related System.
In the absence of an EU internal legal framework for PNR data some EU Countries started building their own national systems with a more or less open support by the Commission notwithstanding the (vocal) opposition of the European Parliament.

Quite surprisingly it is after the entry into force of the LISBON Treaty and of the Charter of Fundamental Rights which recognize a self-standing fundamental right of protection of personal data that the Gericho Walls have fallen and the European Parliament has approved a transatlantic agreement in this matter (even if there was not yet an internal EU legal framework in this matter and the level of protection of Personal data in the agreement was much lower than the one that the same Parliament challenged before the Court of Justice in 2004…).

This change of strategy (due to an clear change of political majority) was seized by the Commission as the right signal to create an EU internal PNR system. After a first badly written proposal the Bruxelles Executive came back with a legislative proposal to authorise the collection of PNR data also by the EU Member States.

Needless to say this move was contested by the national data protection authorities and less convincingly by the European Parliament. Even if it blocked in the last legislature the legislative procedure it has finally decided to reopen the negotiations this year. This is probably due to the converging pressure of the European Council, of the Council Interior Ministers as well as by the convergence of the two biggest political groups (also thanks to the good offices of the EP President..).

From a procedural point of view, the legislative proposal is still in its first phase (parliamentary first reading) but the new majority (covering also the ALDE and ECR) has decided to try to obtain an early agreement with the Council in the framework of the so called “first reading agreements”.
As usual the informal (secret) dialogue has started and there is a clear political will to reach an agreement in the coming months (still under the Luxembourg Presidency).

This being the case both the National Data Protection Authorities and the European Data Protection Supervisor EDPS) are trying to slow down the process by repeating the constitutional, legislative and operational reservations which have also been summarized in the EDPS opinion adopted last week and published below.

Most of these arguments have been raised hundred of times (even by the European Parliament since its first resolution in march 2003) but quite paradoxically the new political majority in the EP, notwithstanding the stronger post-Lisbon constitutional framework of data protection, has decided to change its mind and is giving up the points which has defended in the previous legislatures.

Under such a new political situation it is more than likely that the very well drafted EDPS considerations will not be taken in account. But even if in this case REPETITA (will not) JUVANT other obstacles can arise before the adoption by the European Parliament of the EU PNR legislative proposal.

“There are still judges in Berlin”?

Like the humble miller who facing an unjust decision the Prussian King Frederick II, the Great exclaimed that “There are still judges in Berlin” our “Berlin” judges can be the European Court of Justice which will give an important judgment partially related to this matter on October 6.

The judgment deals with a case raised by Max SCHREMS, an Austrian Student who has considered that his personal data accessible via Facebook were not adequately protected in the US territory (because they can be too easily accessed by the US Security Services).

It will be interesting to see if the Court of Justice meeting as Grand Chamber (as it happens for “big” judgments) will follow the recent Conclusions of Advocate General Yves BOT who has raised strong concerns on the compatibility with the EU Charter of the current US data protection standards in the security domain.

If this was the case the same doubts could be extended on the envisaged EU PNR system which (badly) mirror the US PNR system… Will the determination of one European Citizen be more effective for the rights of each one of us of the hundred pages and countless debates of the European Parliament in the last twelve years? We will know it very soon and in the meantime let’s …fasten our seat belts.

Emilio De Capitani

EDPS SECOND OPINION ON EU PNR – ORIGINAL PUBLISHED HERE Continue reading “Repetita Juvant ? The EDPS 2nd Opinion on the EU system of collection of passenger name records (PNR)”

EU CITIZENS’ ACCESS TO BENEFITS: THE CJEU CLARIFIES THE POSITION OF FORMER WORKERS

Published on EU LAW ANALYSIS on Tuesday, 15 September 2015

by Steve Peers

Today’s CJEU judgment in Alimanovic clarifies again the meaning of the EU law rules on the thorny issue of EU citizens’ access to benefits in another Member State. Like last year’s judgment in Dano (discussed here), it takes a more restrictive approach than suggested by the Court’s prior case law. However, like that prior judgment, today’s ruling leaves some issues open. I will discuss in turn the judgment itself, the impact on EU citizens’ access to benefits, and the UK government’s plans to renegotiate the country’s EU membership.

As a starting point, on the issue of EU citizens’ access to benefits, it is important to make distinctions as regards three issues: (a) the status of the person applying for the benefit ((i) not economically active; (ii) first-time job-seeker in the host State; (iii) previously employed in the host State; (iv) currently in work; (v) permanent resident); (b) the type of benefit at issue (social assistance, or concerning access to the labour market); and (c) whether the dispute concerns access to benefits or expulsion of the person concerned.

The judgment

The Alimanovic case concerns a Swedish woman and her daughter who had worked in Germany briefly, then lost their jobs. They sought a particular benefit in Germany, and the national court asked the CJEU if they were entitled to it.

First of all, the Court reiterated and expanded on what it had said in Dano: the benefit in question was a ‘social assistance’ benefit, not a benefit relating to labour market access. This distinction is important because the EU citizens’ Directivestates that access to ‘social assistance’ benefits can be denied to first-time job-seekers, for as long as they are seeking work, and to all EU citizens during their first three months of residence. Furthermore, the Court’s previous case law (interpreting the Treaty rules on free movement of workers) states that first time job-seekers were entitled to benefits relating to labour market access, but not to social assistance benefits. The Court references that case law obliquely in the Alimanovicjudgment, but does not either reaffirm or denounce it; it should be noted that a case about job-seekers’ access to this same benefit is pending (Garcia-Nieto: see the Advocate-General’s opinion in that case here).

Secondly, the Court then turned to the question of whether EU citizens who were previously briefly employed in the host State could be denied social assistance benefits. The previously employed are not one of the two categories of people specifically excluded from equal treatment to social assistance benefits by the citizens’ Directive; but that does not necessarily mean that they have access to those benefits.

To determine whether they had access to those benefits, the Court interpreted the equal treatment rule in the Directive, which states that equal treatment applies to all those EU citizens ‘residing on the basis of this Directive’ and their family members (leaving aside the exclusions which were already mentioned, as well as other exclusions in the Treaties or other EU legislation). So were the two benefit claimants residing on the basis of the Directive?

The Court ruled that they were not still covered by the Directive as former workers, since the Directive says that those who work in the host State for less than one year (as in their case) retain ‘worker’ status for at least six months after becoming unemployed. After that point, a Member State can (as Germany did) terminate their worker status, which means (unless they have another basis to stay, which was not relevant in this case) they are no longer covered by the equal treatment rule, and lose access to social assistance benefits. The national court also took the view that they could be classified as first-time job-seekers, although the Court pointed out that in that case, the Directive expressly permits Germany to refuse access to social assistance benefits.

Next, the Court distinguished prior case law which requires an individual assessment of whether an EU citizen could be expelled or is an ‘unreasonable burden’ on the social assistance system of the host State. In this case, no such assessment was needed, because the citizens’ Directive already took account of the individual position of workers. The specific period of retaining worker status set out in the Directive and national law ensured legal certainty, while ‘while complying with the principle of proportionality’. Finally, when considering whether there was an ‘unreasonable burden’ on national systems, the individual claim did not count: rather the total of all claims would be ‘bound to’ constitute such a burden.

Comments Continue reading “EU CITIZENS’ ACCESS TO BENEFITS: THE CJEU CLARIFIES THE POSITION OF FORMER WORKERS”

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)”

INTEGRATION REQUIREMENTS FOR THIRD-COUNTRY NATIONALS: THE FIRST CJEU RULING

ORIGINAL PUBISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS

by Steve Peers

When can a Member State require immigrants to undertake integration courses? The Court of Justice dealt squarely with this issue for the first time in today’s judgment in P and S, which concerned the application of the EU’s Directive on the long-term residence of non-EU citizens. (The UK, Ireland and Denmark have an opt-out from this law).

The judgment has a broader relevance, since the EU Directive on family reunion for non-EU citizens also provides for Member States to adopt integration conditions. On the other hand, EU free movement law does not provide for Member States to impose such conditions on EU citizens or their family members. As for Turkish nationals, the EU-Turkey association agreement does not provide for such a condition either, but Member States may impose one subject to a standstill rule in most cases (see last year’s Dogan judgment, discussed here).

Today’s judgment turns on the wording of the long-term residence Directive, which states that Member States ‘may require third-country nationals to comply with integration conditions, in accordance with national law’. The case concerned non-EU citizens who already had long-term resident status under the Directive, but Dutch law still requires them to take civic integration courses and penalises them with a fine every time they fail. A later change to Dutch law requires non-EU citizens to pass these courses before they get long-term residence status, but that later version of the law was not directly at issue in this case.

Judgment

According to the Court, the requirement to take integration courses does not as such infringe the Directive, first and foremost because the Directive clearly permits an integration condition to be imposed before obtaining long-term resident status. Next, the Court ruled that the requirement did not breach the equal treatment rule set out in the Directive, since Dutch nationals could be presumed to have knowledge of Dutch society and the Dutch language, whereas non-EU citizens could not.

However, that was not the end of the Court’s analysis. It then focussed on whether the national rules undercut the effectiveness of the Directive. The Directive had as its main aim the integration of non-EU citizens, and the Court stated that learning the national language and about the host State could facilitate communication with Dutch citizens, and ‘encourages interaction and the development of social relations’. Acquiring a knowledge of Dutch also ‘makes it less difficult’ to find work and take up training courses. The integration requirement therefore contributed to the aims of the Directive.

The Court went on to say that there were some limits upon what Member States can do, as regards ‘the level of knowledge required to pass the civic integration examination’, ‘accessibility of the courses and the material  necessary to prepare’ for the exams, the level of registration fees and ‘specific individual circumstances, such as age, illiteracy or level of education’. But the Court seemed most concerned about the amount of the fines, which were quite high and would be imposed for every failure, or even where the non-EU citizen had not sat the exam within the required time. The fines were also imposed on top of the high fees to sit the exam. So in principle this aspect of the system infringed EU law, although it was left to the national court to apply the Court’s ruling in practice. Finally, the Court stated that it was irrelevant whether the persons concerned already had long-term resident status, since (in this case) it was not a condition for getting or retaining that status.

Comments

The Court’s ruling makes clear that Member States can in principle impose integration requirements for long-term residence status, subject to the principle of effectiveness. The main feature of that principle in this case was the fees for failing (or not sitting) the exam, in conjunction with the fees for sitting the exam. Obviously the Dutch government is now obliged to lower those fees, and other Member States’ rules could be challenged on the same basis. The ruling is obviously particularly relevant to less wealthy migrants who would struggle to pay the fines and test fees several times over.

Although the Court did not rule in any detail on the other limits which EU law imposes upon national integration requirements, such limits certainly exist, as regards the level of knowledge needed to pass, the accessibility of tests and materials, and ‘specific individual circumstances’. It is not clear from the judgment exactly how Member States are obliged to take account of such circumstances – whether by means of a complete exemption from the test or a different version of it. But it should be noted that the list of specific circumstances mentioned by the Court is not exhaustive (‘such as’).

While the judgment clearly implies that Member States may even withhold long-term residence status if an integration test is not passed, the Court did not rule on that issue as such. So it remains open to argue that there may be stricter limits or other factors to consider when Member States impose an integration condition to acquire that status.

Nor did the Court rule on whether the failure to meet an integration condition could be a ground to lose long-term resident status. The Directive does not list this as one of the possible grounds for loss of that status, and it should follow from the objective of the Directive that the list of grounds which could lead to such a loss of status is exhaustive. This also follows from the structure of the Directive: if failure of an integration test could lead to loss of status, why did the drafters of the Directive only mention integration tests in the clause dealing with acquisition of that status?

Today’s judgment is only the first in a line of cases upcoming concerning integration conditions (the next batch of cases concern the parallel clause in the family reunion Directive). As a starting point, the Court has struck a good balance between ensuring that immigrants fit into society and the need to prevent integration tests forming a disguised means of excluding migrants from ever really fitting in despite their genuine efforts.

THE NEW EU MIGRATION AGENDA TAKES SHAPE: ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST NEW MEASURES

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON MAY 28 ON  EU LAW ANALYSIS

by Steve Peers

This week the European Commission took its first steps towards implementing its new EU Migration Agenda (previously discussed here). A number of the items in the agenda have already been addressed (for instance, the military mission against smugglers on the Libyan coast, as discussed here). Others will be addressed later: a broader reform of legal migration law and changes to the rules on asylum procedures and the ‘Dublin’ rules on responsibility for asylum-seekers.

The first batch of measures contained five different elements. First of all, the Commission launched a public consultation on the reform of the existing EU law providing for a ‘Blue Card’ for the admission of highly-skilled non-EU migrants. I have commented previouslyhere on the implementation of this law and the reforms to it which should be adopted.

Secondly, the Commission released an Action Plan against migrant smuggling. This mainly elaborates upon several ideas mentioned already in the main agenda. This includes: a revision of EU anti-smuggling law, planned for 2016, to increase smugglers’ penalties and clarify humanitarian exceptions from the rules; possible new rules on immigration liaison officers in 2016; a Handbook on expulsion in 2015; a possible revision of the rules on trafficking victims, in 2016, to include ‘victims’ of smuggling; a revision of the legislation on Frontex (the EU border agency), to give it more powers relating to expulsion; changes to the rules on the Schengen Information System in 2015-16, so that all Schengen Member States’ entry bans are applicable across the Schengen area; a handbook on prevention of migrant smuggling in 2017; readmission agreements with sub-Saharan countries; and stronger enforcement of the rules prohibiting employment of irregular migrants. Most of these measures concern all irregular migrants, not just those who were smuggled to the EU.

Thirdly, the Commission adopted a Recommendation on the resettlement of refugeesdirectly from outside the EU to EU Member States. The text of this measure has not yet appeared, and so I can’t comment on it in detail. Obviously though, as a Recommendation it is non-binding, and as an act of the Commission, it does not need the approval of the Council or the European Parliament. According to the new Immigration Agenda, there will be EU funds attached to each resettled refugee, so Member States are encouraged to resettle people. It is a useful measure to ensure that a bigger number of persons are rescued without having to risk their lives or pay smugglers to cross the Mediterranean, although the overall numbers are likely to be modest.  In the event that Member States do not make use of the Recommendation to resettle refugees, the Migration Agenda promises a proposal for a binding measure, although it might be hard to find sufficient support in Council for its adoption.

Fourthly, the Commission issued guidance on the fingerprinting of asylum-seekers, as provided for in the EU’s Eurodac legislation, which sets up a database of such fingerprints in order to apply the ‘Dublin’ rules more effectively. In the Commission’s view, any irregular border-crosser who refuses to give fingerprints ought to be detained, expelled and subjected to an entry ban, in accordance with EU asylum law and the Returns Directive. Alternatively, Member States could force them to take fingerprints, with apossible exception for pregnant women and minors. Frankly, the correct application of the EU’s Dublin system is not worth the health of life of a single unborn child.

Moreover, the Commission appears to be confused about the details of the relevant legislation. It would be necessary to prove that refusal to take fingerprints ‘avoids or hampers the preparation of return or the removal process’ to justify detention under theReturns Directive; but the purpose of the fingerprinting is mainly to apply the Dublin asylum rules, not to ‘prepare the return and/or carry out the removal process’, which is the legal basis for detention of irregular migrants under the Returns Directive. Furthermore, the rules on entry bans in that Directive make no reference to the issue of fingerprinting. As for asylum-seekers, the paper is correct to say that they can be detained in order to ‘verify their identity and/or nationality’ in the EU’s Reception ConditionsDirective. However, for asylum-seekers who have been fingerprinted already by a Member State and then apply for asylum in a second Member State, the Commission fails to mention that the Dublin rules apply. They permit detention only where there is a ‘significant risk of absconding’, which does not automatically follow from a refusal to be fingerprinted.

Fifthly, the Commission proposed a Decision on relocation of asylum-seekers between Member States. This is the only one of this week’s proposals which would (if adopted) be legally binding. Like most Commission proposals, this needs a qualified majority of Member States to support it in the Council; unlike most EU law, the European Parliament need only be consulted. It seems from press reports that there will be a ‘blocking minority’ of Member States preventing its adoption, unless some of them change their position. It’s also possible that it will be agreed, but with major changes. But for now, let’s look at what the proposal would do if adopted.

The main thrust of the proposal is to derogate from the usual ‘Dublin’ rules as regards Italy and Greece, and distribute about 40% of the asylum-seekers which would normally be the responsibility of those Member States under the Dublin rules to other Member States. Due to opt-outs, the other Member States will not include Denmark or the UK, although it seems possible that Ireland will opt in. The proposal also will not apply to the non-Member States bound by the Dublin rules (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein). It would effectively be a regime within a regime, with only 25 or 26 of the 32 Dublin States applying it.

The relocated asylum-seekers will be split 60/40 between Italy and Greece, and will be allocated to other Member States on the basis of the criteria set out in the Annexes to the proposal. Relocation will be selective, applying only to those nationalities whose applications have over a 75% success rate in applications for international protection. It’s clear from the proposal that the Commission believes that only Syrians and Eritreans will qualify. The Member State of relocation will be responsible for considering the application, and asylum-seekers and refugees will not be able to move between Member States, in accordance with the normal Dublin rules. (After five years’ residence, refugees can move between Member States, according to the EU’s long-term residence Directive).

Besides the nationality criterion, who will be relocated? Asylum-seekers must be fingerprinted in order to qualify. The selection of asylum-seekers will be made by Italy and Greece, who must give ‘priority’ to those who are considered ‘vulnerable’ as defined by the EU reception conditions Directive. This refers to a long list of people:

‘such as minors, unaccompanied minors, disabled people, elderly people, pregnant women, single parents with minor children, victims of human trafficking, persons with serious illnesses, persons with mental disorders and persons who have been subjected to torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence, such as victims of female genital mutilation’

Implicitly, the other Member States must accept the asylum-seekers nominated by Italy and Greece, except that they can refuse relocation if it’s ‘likely that there are national security or public order concerns’.

What about the asylum-seekers themselves? There is no requirement that they consent to their relocation or have the power to request it. The proposed Decision only requires Italy and Greece to inform and notify the asylum-seekers about the relocation, and the Commission suggests that they could only appeal against the decision if there are major human rights problems in the country to which they would be relocated. So neither the relocation itself, nor the choice of Member State that a person will be relocated to, is voluntary. This is problematic, since forcing asylum-seekers to a country that they don’t want to be in is one of the key problems facing the Dublin system already.

Of course, it’s possible that like children left in an orphanage who weren’t picked by new parents, there will be rather more asylum-seekers disappointed that they were notselected for relocation.  Do they have the right to a legal challenge? Arguably yes, to the extent that Italy and Greece select people who are not vulnerable for relocation, in light of their legal obligation to select vulnerable persons as a priority.

Asylum-seekers do have the right to insist that their core family members (spouse or partner, unmarried minor children, or parents of minors) who are already on EU territory come with them to the relocated Member State. It’s not clear if Member States could count the transfer of family members towards their overall quota. If the asylum-seekers obtain refugee status in the State of relocation, they could also apply for family reunion under the EU’s family reunion Directive.

Similarly, it’s not clear if Member States can count towards their overall quota asylum-seekers who would normally be the responsibility of Italy and Greece, but who have already found their way on to another Member State’s territory. This might be termed relocation sur place. According to the rules in the Decision, this would in any event depend upon the willingness of Italy and Greece to designate such asylum-seekers for relocation. And as the Commission notes, persons who would already be the responsibility of Greece cannot be sent back there anyway due to the collapse of the asylum system in Greece, according to the CJEU ruling in NS (the position regarding Italy is more qualified: see thediscussion of last year’s Tarakhel judgment). Of course, it is possible that the relocation of significant numbers of asylum-seekers away from Greece will contribute to solving the systemic problems with that country’s asylum system in the foreseeable future.

Overall, if the Council is willing to agree to the proposed Decision, it is likely to make a significant contribution to solving the problems with the asylum systems of some Member States, although only the more significant review of the Dublin rules promised for 2016 (or a profound improvement in the situation of countries of origin or transit) could provide a long-term solution. It is very striking that while this proposal effectively admits that the Dublin system is profoundly dysfunctional, the separate set of fingerprinting guidelines issued on the same day adopts a tone of head-banging savagery to try and get that system to work.

A final question arising is the impact of the proposed asylum measures on the UK. While the UK has an opt out, some suggest that all asylum-seekers who reach the EU could ultimately obtain EU citizenship and then move to the UK. However, the proposed Decision only relocates asylum-seekers who have already reached the EU, rather than increase the total number of asylum-seekers. Furthermore, a recent fact check suggests that only a modest number of non-EU citizens get Italian nationality each year, and that Italy only grants refugee status to a handful of people. Indeed, the only prominent Italian citizen with an African background currently in the UK is Mario Balotelli – but I don’t want to intrude into the private grief of Liverpool football fans.

Within the Sound of Silence. Dangerous Liaisons between Detention and Citizenship under European Union Law

by Leandro Mancano (*)

Many scholars have recently pointed out the need to revise those European Union (EU) instruments adopted under the former ‘third pillar’. This urgency has only grown after the expiring of the transitional period, occurred 1st December 2014, which resulted in issues of legal uncertainty as to which kind of legal regime is to be applied to such instruments (whether the pre-Lisbon framework, the post Lisbon rules or a ‘middle-way’ solution). In this context, three EU law instruments on detention deserve particular attention: Council Framework Decision (FD) 2009/829/JHA on supervision measures; Council FD 2008/947/JHA on probation measures and alternative sanctions; Council FD 2008/909/JHA on mutual recognition of custodial sentences (also known as FD on the transfer of prisoners).

Firstly, the Commission has rebuked Member States at the outset of 2014, in light of the weak state of implementation of these instruments (1). After one year, such report has been followed by updated information about the state of play of the implementation of these FDs, which testify that many Member States have not fulfilled their obligation of transposition so far (2). This raises concerns especially if one considers that detention has been increasingly playing a major role throughout EU law, establishing a potentially dangerous liaison with EU citizenship.

As shown below, the risky factor lies in the circumstance that many cross references have made between EU criminal law and EU citizenship. However, such connections are surrounded with a sound of silence, as their meaning and outline have not been sufficiently clarified hitherto.

The basic assumption which EU citizenship brings with it is that every Union citizen is entitled to move and reside freely within the Union regardless of their nationality, and without requiring a link to the performance of an economic activity.This can be inferred from primary legislation (in particular Articles 18, 19 and 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU), as well as Directive 2004/38/EC (also known as ‘Citizenship Directive’). On the one hand, under Article 16 of the Directive Union citizens are granted the right of permanent residence in the host Member State after legally residing therein for a continuous period of five years. On the other, Article 28 states that: those Union citizens (or their family members) who have the right of permanent residence in the host Member State, may be subject to an expulsion measure so long as there are serious grounds of public policy or public security; Union citizens who have resided in the host Member State for ten years may not be expelled from the host Member State, unless imperative grounds of public security, as defined by Member States, justify the measure. The provision also applies to family members who are not nationals of a Member State and have legally resided with the Union citizen in the host Member State for the same timeframe.

The intersections between EU citizenship and detention may be traced back to a threefold track. Continue reading “Within the Sound of Silence. Dangerous Liaisons between Detention and Citizenship under European Union Law”

TRIBUNE : “Schengen”, terrorism and security (Bertoncini / Vitorino)

by Yves Bertoncini and Antonio Vitorino (*)

The Paris attacks of January 2015 gave rise to an emotion shared by millions of Europeans, while fueling some doubts on their ability to combat terrorist threats within the “Schengen Area”, write Yves Bertoncini and António Vitorino.

1. The Schengen Agreement has resulted in a diversification of police checks, making them more effective, including those to identify terrorist threats.

The creation of the Schengen Area, which currently comprises twenty-six member countries, including twenty-two of the twenty-eight EU Member States, has led to a redeployment of national and European police checks, based on four complementary principles.

Firstly, the closure of permanent “internal” border posts within the Schengen Area, in order to avoid long and pointless queues to hundreds of thousands of Europeans who cross over every week to work, study, meet relatives and enjoy themselves – while this wait remains compulsory for those who wish to travel to or from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Ireland, Romania and the United Kingdom.

Secondly, the organisation of mobile patrols across all Schengen Area member countries, which may be conducted jointly: these checks are much more effective, particularly with regard to the fight against cross-border crime and terrorism, as they can be used to flush out wanted persons when they are not expecting it (as is the case at a border). No terrorist has ever declared his intention when crossing a border!

Thirdly, the joint management of external borders, which are ipso facto “our” borders, as those crossing them can travel to other member countries, provided that they comply with European regulations on visas and resources. These common borders are land, sea and air borders (all airports welcoming flights from non-Schengen countries). Each country is in charge of a section of these borders, and must act to combat terrorist threats as a priority, particularly when they escalate due to conflicts occurring around the EU, namely in the Middle East and the Sahel regions.

Lastly, the possibility of applying “safeguard clauses” to reestablish national border checks for a limited period of time, for example during sporting or social events, and also in the case of terrorist threats. These clauses have already been used dozens of times since 1985, under EU supervision, in order to enable governments to deal with emergency situations.

2. Terrorist threats call for the spirit of the Schengen Agreement to be furthered

The emotion aroused in the aftermath of terrorist attacks often revives a need for reassurance that can be centred around the reopening of posts at national borders, given their importance in the collective psyche. In-depth considerations, however, urge us to satisfy this need for security within the very framework of the Schengen Area, in which the spirit of cooperation and mutual trust must be fostered.

The Madrid bombings in March 2004 were perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists from Morocco and the East, with the complicity of Spanish nationals: it is through increased security at the Schengen Area’s external borders and stronger police and judicial cooperation that this terrorist attack could have been thwarted. While it is not a member of the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom was the target of bloody attacks in July 2005. These attacks were perpetrated by British nationals, one of whom was able to leave the country after crossing a national border: he was arrested in Rome, thanks to European police and judicial cooperation.

The perpetrators of the Paris attacks in January 2015 were born in France and were known to the country’s police and legal departments and/or its intelligence services. One of the men had been checked by Paris police a few days prior to the attacks and a few hours before leaving for Spain with his girlfriend, currently in hiding in Syria. In light of the information in the police’s possession, it’s equally unlikely that he would have been detained at the border between France and Spain. In hindsight, it can be noted that the surveillance of the three terrorists was insufficiently constant and effective to be able to detect their intention to attack.

It is by granting additional financial, human and legal resources to the police and justice bodies on both national and European levels that we can combat such terrorist attacks more effectively. Not by allocating these resources to controls at Schengen Area internal borders, which would result in pointless and very onerous checks of the millions of crossings that take place each month.

3. The police and judicial cooperation organised by the Schengen Agreement and the EU must be reinforced, including cooperation to combat terrorism

The Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement is made up of 141 articles, which were then integrated into community legislation. The first articles set out the rules that offer residents of member countries the possibility of freedom of movement. Most of the articles concern the organisation of police and judicial cooperation between national authorities – in which even non-member countries such as the United Kingdom may take part occasionally. “Schengen” therefore results in greater freedom and increased security, efforts intended to compensate and to balance, but which could be reassessed in light of terrorist threats.

The reinforcement of the financial and human resources allocated to member country policing and justice must come together with an improvement of the “Schengen Information System”, and the stepping up of exchanges between intelligence services, including bilateral arrangements. The creation of a European legal framework for air passenger data exchanges (known as “EU-PNR”) will improve police forces’ effectiveness – while the guarantees governing the use of personal data are reinforced in consequence.

European bodies such as Europol, Eurojust and the Frontex agency could step up their technical assistance for member countries if they were allocated more resources. They will contribute to reinforcing the quality of checks conducted in all respects of the Schengen Area, including on the basis of one-off assessment assignments that target suspected “weak links” and by heightening mutual trust between countries.

In conclusion, European cooperation with third countries in which terrorists are likely to travel must be improved – for example Turkey and North African countries – and also with the USA. A globalised movement of police and judicial cooperation must be promoted to increase Europeans’ safety, against a movement of unrealistic and ineffective focus on national borders.

An improved application of the Schengen Area’s operating rules is without doubt possible, to enable its member countries and the EU to withstand terrorist threats. Questioning these rules does not in any way impede freedom of movement, a right granted since the Rome Treaty to all EU residents, regardless of whether or not their country is a member of the Schengen Area. Yet this would make the exercise of this right much more complex and costly, while undermining the shared responsibility that Europeans require in order to dismantle terrorist networks.

(*) António Vitorino is president and Yves Bertoncini director of Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute, the EU think tank based in Paris. Vitorino is also former European Commissioner for justice and home affairs.

This Tribune of Notre Europe / Jacques DELORS Institute was also published on the HuffingtonPost.fr and on Euractiv.com.