Examination of Witnesses (Questions 288
- 299)
TUESDAY 23 MARCH 2004
MR PETER
BOSCH, MRS
ANITA BUNDEGAARD
AND DR
HEAVEN CRAWLEY
Chairman: Thank you very much for coming
and giving evidence this afternoon. A couple of points: one, do
not be misled by these microphones, because they are not very
good microphones, so we have to speak up a bit, and we are slightly
deaf. Also, for all sorts of reasons, a number of colleagues are
away overseas, so we are, as a Committee, as you can see, fairly
tight but of very high calibre notwithstanding. Hugh?
Q288 Hugh Bayley: Perhaps my question
is to Mrs Bundegaard, to begin with at least, although others
may wish to comment. It has to do with whether it is possible
in policy terms and in legislative terms to distinguish between
economic migrants and forced migrants. How easy is it? Does it
make sense to maintain a belief that these are two separate groups
of people who can be dealt with with separate laws?
Mrs Bundegaard: Well, thank you
very much for giving us an opportunity to come here and talk about
these issues and for the question, in particular, which is, of
course, a very complex and difficult issue and a difficult one
to answer also, because there is no doubt that today we see mixed
flows of migrants and people who flee for various reasons, people
who flee for reasons of persecution and people who actually move
because they want to improve their living conditions. It is very
difficult to differentiate, but it is still believed that it is
very, very important to maintain the distinction between people
fleeing from persecution and people who do not flee from persecution
otherwise we undermine the rights of refugees to actually find
protection and solutions. Therefore, in our view, in UNHCR's view,
it makes sense still to distinguish and that we have to distinguish
in order to give refugees the protection and the assistance that
are needed.
Q289 Hugh Bayley: I do not know whether
any of the other witnesses want to contribute?
Dr Crawley: Can I come back on
that particular question as well? I have been responsible for
the last 18 months for research at the Institute for Public Policy
Research on Asylum and Migration Policy in the UK and Europe,
and one of the outcomes was a publication called the States of
Conflict. What we did in that report was essentially to look at
the flows of asylum seekers to Europe over the period 1990 to
2000 and to identify what countries they came from, those individuals,
and then to look at the circumstances in the countries of origin
to try and draw some conclusions about whether the oft held assumption
that most asylum seekers are economic migrants would be held true
by that evidence. What we found was that 60% of all asylum seekers
in that period came from only ten countries, and in those ten
countries the only unifying factor was the fact that there was
conflict, human rights abuse or ethnic conflict of one kind or
another. So although there were other factors that we looked at,
like poverty and like factors on the Human Development Index and
other aspects that might be associated with economic migration,
in actual fact all of those asylum seekers came from countries
in which there was conflict. I think—
Q290 Mr Robathan: Turkey?
Dr Crawley: I think we would say
Turkey certainly has conflict of one kind or another in terms
of the Kurdish situation.
Q291 Mr Robathan: Were they all Kurds?
Dr Crawley: Not all Kurds, no.
Q292 Mr Robathan: Kurdistan is only
a very small part of Turkey?
Dr Crawley: No, that is right,
and part of the problem—
Q293 Mr Robathan: And Romania? Romania
does not have conflict?
Dr Crawley: No, Romania has conflict
in the form of discrimination against certain ethnic groups, notably
the Roma. What we were trying to do is not to look at individual
cases of asylum, but to try to step back from the day-to-day realities
of asylum numbers and to try and look over a long period and over
a much broader set of factors to see whether, even allowing for
the fact that not all individuals within those flows are in need
of protection, not all individuals are necessarily even from the
countries that they claim they are from, fair enough, but, given
the scale of that migration, we should be able to make some general
conclusions about what is going on in the countries that produce
forced migrants and certainly, as I say, the only factor that
was common to all ten countries was conflict.
Q294 Mr Robathan: Can I come in?
I am sorry, Chairman. I was in Romania last week and, indeed,
there is a very big issue about the Roma, but I do not think you
would call it "conflict"?
Dr Crawley: I think it depends
on your definition of "conflict".
Q295 Mr Robathan: Discrimination?
Dr Crawley: Well, when I say "conflict",
as indicated in the report, it is not conflict in the sense of
necessarily ethnic violence and war. We are talking about conflict
and ethnic discrimination of various kinds—that is my definition
of it in the report—and we are taking it over a much longer
period of time. Things in Romania have changed quite significantly
over that period of time. What we are looking act is overall flows
and overall factors in those countries of origin.
Q296 Chairman: What you are saying
is that it is important that we have this category of migrants
and then subcategorise that into migrants who are refugees and
migrants who are not refugees. Is that fair to say?
Dr Crawley: Yes.
Q297 Chairman: I suppose, picking
up from Heaven Crawley's point, those countries which are in conflict
are almost certainly going to be those countries which are suffering
from a lack of sustainable development. It follows that your ten
countries are also going to tend to be somewhat poor countries,
are they?
Dr Crawley: The ten countries
are a mixture of middle income and low income countries. The poorest
countries in the world tend not to have huge numbers of migrants
that move long distances, because you need to have some resource
in order to be able to move long distances. Nonetheless, the commonality,
I think, to pick up on the point that was made by Anita, there
is clearly a complexity about this. It is not the case that those
countries only have human rights abuse and political unrest and
discrimination. There are clearly connections between what is
going on in terms of under and undevelopment, the way in which
those structures are set up in terms of the political structures.
What I guess the research is showing us in terms of the evidence
here is that the assumption that it is simply under-development
or economic poverty that leads to outflows of forced migrants,
that is not held up by the data, but we do not dispute that there
are connections between under-development, political conflict,
unrest of various kinds in human rights abuse, not least because
under-development is often associated with undemocratic regimes
and corrupt regimes. So there are clear connections but these
connections are very complicated and they lead to, as Anita said,
mixed flows where governments then have a job to decide who is
the one who is genuinely protected from persecution and who is
not; but that is a separate issue. If you step back and look at
it in the round, you have to accept that if you want to address
the cause of forced migration you have to look at what is happening
in those countries that are producing large numbers of forced
migrants.
Q298 Mr Robathan: I would like to
address this particular question to Mr Bosch, because it is the
EU's approach to immigration that I am interested in. We have
been trying hard to limit legal migration to work permits and,
of course, the humanitarian/asylum level for refugees. To what
extent does the EU's approach shape or constrain the UK? We are
part of the EU and migration policy in general, and we get quite
concerned, as you probably know from certain parts of the press
you may have read, about migrants sitting in Calais coming across—what
was the place—coming across to Dover. I am sure you have
seen endless rather boring newspaper reports about it. Do you
think that if we had more access to legal immigration that would
reduce pressure on the asylum channel and also cut out the smugglers
and the traffickers?
Mr Bosch: Thank you for the question.
First of all, as it is the first time that I am taking the floor,
let me thank you on behalf of the Commission for giving me the
opportunity to be with you today. I think it is very timely that
you have started this inquiry. As you know, the European Union
is building up its policies on asylum and migration, both internal
and external, and I think the inquiry gives also for us quite
a lot of useful information in developing our policies. If you
will allow, please let me come back to the first question, very
briefly, on the need to distinguish economic migrants or forced
migration. Rather a basic question which I think should underlie
any policy is the question why do people move? I think this question
in previous hearings has not been addressed so much. Migration,
the movement of people, is an extremely complicated matter. There
are many, many factors which influence people moving, and we have
to be very specific as to the reasons why people move. Of course,
economic migration is one of them, over-population could be another,
high pressure on men and urban environments, armed conflict, ethnic
cleansing—there is a whole series of reasons why people
want to move. I think if we are to develop a policy at a union
level or at a Member State level, we have to be very precise each
time and look at the specific situation in a specific third country
to see what we can do to address these group flows. In its approach
the Commission proposes, and we are pleased to see that the Council
agrees to this, a comprehensive approach in which you try to work
with the country concerned in partnership to understand the realities
of the country, and we feel that we need to work in different
areas at the same time. We need to look at the trade policies,
we need to look at the possibilities for conflict prevention;
we need to look at their development policies and what have you.
There are a whole series of instruments at national and EU level
that need to be looked upon and worked with in a comprehensive
manner, and that is what we are doing. So, yes, indeed it is useful
to make a distinction, not only given the importance, of course,
to keep up the asylum system and have a clear definition of what
an asylum seeker is, but also, on a policy level, what can we
do in fact to address these group flows. Coming to your question
about the relationship between legal migration and illegal migration,
you may know that the Commission, as we speak, is working on a
communication on exactly that issue, and we will put it on the
Council agenda in June. Our Commissioner will make a presentation
on this communication in June. Of course, we can maybe share some
of the findings. The Commission believes that, indeed, opening
up channels for legal migration will have, to a certain extent,
an influence on illegal migration. If we look at the situation
in Europe for the next 20 to 30 years, it is very clear that Europe
will need immigration. Only in the research field, as you may
know, it is predicted that we will need 700,000 additional researchers
until 2010 to meet the Lisbon criteria. These 700,000 researchers
are not all going to be found in the European Union. We need an
admission policy at union level. But the same goes for self-employed
and employed people. If we look at the demographic situation in
Europe, it is clear that up to 2010 in many, many areas there
will simply not be enough people to keep up our level of economic
development, and that is why the Commission is saying for some
years now to the Council, to the Member States, that we need to
get our act together and, if we do not, we will lose even more
ground compared to countries like Canada, the United States, China.
Migration is a part of history. It is there and will remain there.
If the European Union does not come to grips and does not fix
a transparent admission policy, illegal migration will rise. It
is very clear. People will come to Europe looking for a new job,
looking for a better life. In the developing world it is expected
that there will be somewhere between 500 to 700 million people
extra in the next decades. Even if there would be modest economic
development in those countries, these new people coming onto the
labour market will never ever find employment. The unemployment
rates in these countries, also countries very close to the European
Union, will sky-rocket in the next 20 years. You have to make
the analysis of countries like North Africa, for instance, if
you see what will be happening there in the next 20 years.
Q299 Mr Robathan: Where?
Mr Bosch: The countries in North
Africa: Morocco, Tunisia. Mind you, these countries themselves
are increasingly confronted with migration problems, the Moroccans,
the Libyans, the Tunisians are increasingly confronted with social
tensions because of migration from, for instance, Sub-Saharan
Africa, and I think there is a need that we start to work with
these countries. So coming to your question again on the relationship
between legal and illegal migration, yes, definitely there is
a relationship between the two. It is also true that many people
come to Europe who are willing to come legally and who could come
legally but simply do not know the procedures. China is a good
example of that. There are many Chinese people coming to Europe
who could come legally, but because of all sorts of reasons, that
they do not know the procedures, that the procedures are not,
let's say, swift enough, there is no guarantee that you will get
your visa in time, many people coming, we do not know how many,
but people are coming to Europe simply by a lack of transparent
and efficient procedures. These are just a couple of examples
I would like to give as a response to your question.
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