Select Committee on European Communities Eleventh Report


A. GENERAL POLICY QUESTIONS

27. UNITED KINGDOM PRESIDENCY PROPOSAL FOR AN ACTION PLAN ON MEASURES TO BE TAKEN BY MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION ON THE INFLUX OF MIGRANTS FROM IRAQ

Letter from the Rt Hon Jack Straw MP, Home Secretary, to Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee

  I am writing to you personally about this proposal with a request that the Committee gives it their urgent attention. The draft Action Plan is to be submitted to the General Affairs Council on 26-27 January for adoption.

  The document and the covering Explanatory Note are enclosed [not printed].

  I do not propose to expand on them in this letter but I would like to explain the urgency of this issue and therefore my request for the Committee's early comments.

  The general issue of migrants from Iraq has developed very quickly into an issue of major political importance for a number of Member States of the European Union. It was discussed at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 4-5 December 1997 where Ministers agreed that K4 Committee should examine a proposal for an EU Action Plan. At its meeting on 18 December, K4 Committee decided that an Action Plan should be drawn up. As incoming Presidency the UK drew up a draft Action Plan which was issued as a Council document on 6 January. It has since been discussed in the various, relevant working groups and the first revision, which is the document I am sending to you, was discussed by the K4 Committee on 16 January. This Action Plan, which consists of Justice and Home Affairs elements only, will then, with separate Second Pillar elements, be submitted to the General Affairs Council on 26-27 January for adopton.

  I am sorry so early in our Presidency to have to ask you to arrange Scrutiny of a Third Pillar document in such haste. But this is an unusually urgent matter which I am sure you will appreciate. I would welcome the Committee's early response.

January 1998

Letter from Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee, to the Rt Hon Jack Straw MP, Home Secretary

  Thank you for your letter, received on 19 January, about the above proposal. This is obviously a significant matter, and in normal circumstances I would have referred the proposal to Sub-Committee F (Social Affairs, Education and Home affairs) for scrutiny. However, in view of the need to act quickly, I took advantage of the fact that there was a meeting of the European Communities Committee yesterday afternoon, and circulated your letter and Explanatory Note to the Committee for its consideration.

  The Committee agreed with the Government on the urgency of the matter. But the Committee also noted that the Kurdish crisis has raised a number of questions concerning the effectiveness of existing controls and co-operation under the Schengen Agreement and the Dublin Convention, and the implications for the proposed Eurodac Convention. These are matters about which we may wish to ask Doug Henderson when he gives evidence to the Committee on 17 February, and which Sub-Committee F may, in due course, wish to look at.

  These are clearly not reasons for holding up the present proposal. Consequently, the Committee was content to clear the proposal.

21 January 1998


 
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