Belgium's migration policy

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Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 10:48:43 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Belgium's migration policy

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Tim Raeymaekers <[email protected]>

Belgium's migration policy


Dear all,
 
I post you an article on Belgium's migration policy, which I recently
published in the Prague based magazine The New Presence. Please feel
free to comment!
 
Yours, Tim Raeymaekers
 
--------------
A Western European Failure to Respect Human Rights:
Belgium's sans papiers
Timothy Raeymaekers
 
Two weeks before the European summit on migration in Tampere, Finland,
(October 15-16) the Belgian government decided to send back 74 Slovak
Roma refugees who were staying in the country illegally. The incident
not only caused a breach in the governing coalition in Belgium, it
also casted serious doubts upon the direction of a common European
migration policy, and Europe's attitude towards the illegal sans
papiers - refugees without official legitimation.
 
Since last August, the Belgian government has been making attempts to
reform its staggering migration policy, and to adapt it to growing
European standards. The figures of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) are telling. With 22.000 asylum
requests in 1998 - a number which is expected to grow almost to 40.000
this year, Belgium has seen an exceptional rise in its immigration
statistics, most of whom are coming from within Europe. In terms of
numbers of asylum seekers per square kilometer, Belgium is occupying
the third place in Europe, just after Britain and Switzerland.
Consequently, a swift answer was needed. In a constructive dialogue
with local NGOs such as "Midecins sans Frontihres", the Belgian
authorities have been working on a coherent policy to protect its
country from the growing influx of asylum seekers and illegal sans
papiers. But the latest incident with the Roma refugees has shown that
the task is not going to be as easy as initially expected.

Until the last minute, local NGOs and advocates of human rights have
been making attempts to prevent the Roma's brutal expulsion. The
Belgian "Liga for Human Rights" even addressed an official complaint
to the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, and won its case.
Strasbourg protested that the expulsion procedure of a number of
refugees was not yet completed. But the Belgian government decided to
lay this complaint aside. As Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt put it, he
did not want to compromise his country even more with this already
sloppy operation.
 
The country's Interior Minister, Antoine Duquesne, seems to have come
out the worse for wear. He accused the national police force of
unnecessarily rushing the refugees from their homes in Ghent and
Tienen as they were being transported to the airport. However, it has
become apparent that their action was being led from the very
beginning by the country's Migration Service, a service which operates
entirely under Duquesne's responsibility. "Either you were being
informed about the operation of the Migration Service," fulminated one
of the opposition members in parliament, "and then you're a liar, or
you didn't know anything about it, which makes you incompetent as a
minister." On demand of the Migration Service, the Roma were told
earlier that week to "complete their asylum request" at the city's
police office, only to find themselves being transported to a closed
refugee centre shortly afterwards. As one refugee testified, those
Roma who preferred to stay awaited a vicious choice. Either they had
to get out of the country by their own means, or they could expect to
be expelled manu militari in the forthcoming days. Asked by one of the
Roma if he could return to his country by car, one police officer
answered him that his wife and kids were going to be sent back by
plane anyhow.
 
"New Political Culture"
 
These events have definite political fall-out. Some politicians
already fear a serious breach in the newborn government coalition.
After thirty years of Catholic-Socialist rule, a union of Liberals,
Socialists and Greens was elected into federal office with the slogan
that "This Country Can Do Better". Since last August, it is trying
hard to get rid of the country's non-transparent government style. But
the haste in which these Eastern sans papiers were being lured into
the trap puts their so-called "New Political Culture" into question.
Several political leaders have already expressed dissatisfaction with
the country's deteriorating migration policy. The president of the
moderate nationalist People's Party (VU) Patrick Vankrunkelsven has
demanded that Minister Duquesne resign. To Vankrunkelsven, the devious
way in which the refugees were expelled makes Duquesne's position
"impossible to sustain".
 
The Actual Problem
 
Meanwhile, political blunders have been piling up, and are
increasingly distracting attention from the actual policy problem. A
new government proposal to regulate the illegals' asylum requests was
rejected by the Belgian Court of State, the country's highest judicial
institution. The Court rightly pointed out that such a proposal
required a change of the Constitution, which in turn has to go through
parliament. But the paradox lay elsewhere. For entirely opposed
reasons, both the humanitarian NGOs and the Flemish extreme
nationalists (Flemish Block) had been demanding a more serious debate
about the proposal. As a result of the Court's decision, they find
themselves trapped into a peculiar coalition. While the Flemish Block
eagerly jumped in to obstruct any talk of regulation, NGO
representatives have been fearful for the rights of the illegal
refugees, who are in danger of being left out in the cold by any
policy reform.
 
The Rights of Illegal Refugees
 
True enough, amidst all these squabbles, one might lose sight of the
underlying problem of the government's policy reform, which contains
no reference whatsoever to the rights of illegal refugees. For them,
the situation can only worsen. According to Peter Casaer, head of the
Belgian mission of "Midecins sans Frontihres", the government's
decision to expell the Roma has only been grist for the mill of the
extreme right in Belgium. When continued, it will only strengthen the
fear for greater migration, and further increase racism amongst the
country's population. Europe will be confronted with a growing number
of people who will, more than ever, fall into the hands of those who
traffic in human beings and employ people under the table, and will be
reticent to look for official assistance in difficult circumstances
because of growing official xenophobia.
 
A Dangerous Precedent
 
Still, the issue raises a more general question. The Belgian decision
to lay aside a protest of the European Human Rights Court has set a
dangerous precedent for other states that have to cope with
immigration problems. European nations are already engaged in a
virtual competition to strengthen their respective immigration
policies. As a result, asylum seekers are funneled to those countries
with the most liberal laws, such as Britain and Belgium. But at the
European summit in Tampere, the Belgian plea for a unitary asylum
procedure throughout the Union fell on deaf ears. Most other Europeans
wish to halt migration at any costs. For the Belgian Roma, recently
returned to their hometown of Kosice in Slovakia, it doesn't seem to
matter. Many are already making plans to return to Belgium.
 
Timothy Raeymaekers studied International Relations at the London
School of Economics and Political Science.
 
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