Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
Mr Simon Busuttil, Mr Gérard Deprez, Mr Javier
Moreno Sanchez and Ms Hélène Calers
16 OCTOBER 2007
Q100 Baroness Tonge: No; I just want
to know exactly where it goes.
Mr Deprez: It goes for the operations.
Q101 Baroness Tonge: Does it go into
the Member States' government?
Mr Deprez: Yes, for the operations.
Mr Busuttil: The money is divided, to put it
briefly, into two sections. You have the budget allocation for
the administration of the agency and you have the budget allocation
for operational purposes, the operational budget. Clearly, missions
would be paid out of the operational budget whereas the staff
salaries and administration would be paid out of the administrative
budget. If I can give you the numbers, you have around €15
million for the 2008 administrative budget, and it is 30% of this
budget that we have frozen, and then you have another €53.5
million for the operational budget.
Q102 Baroness Tonge: I cannot understand
why the Member States are paid for the cost of their contribution
to the operation, why a country such as Italy is not providing
what they pledged, because it is no financial loss to them if
they do, presumably, because Frontex pays them.
Mr Busuttil: Of course this question is very
much open to interpretation. I will give you my own and I am sure
my colleagues will have their own too. I think it is back to the
link as to who will take responsibility for the people who are
saved. It all boils down to that. The general reluctance, I think,
boils down to that. It is not about who is going to save the lives;
it is about who is going to host them as a country after they
are saved.
Q103 Baroness Tonge: We were also
concerned that, given the short life that Frontex has had so far,
not only should the RABITs regulation come into force so quickly
but that they should be allowed to carry arms, that the teams
should be armed. We wondered what the responsibility is again
between Member States and Frontex for the carrying of those arms
and who ensures that people are properly trained and use them
properly.
Mr Deprez: According to the regulation, members
of the RABIT teams have the opportunity to carry arms if their
home country gives them the right to do so. They are not forced
to carry arms, but they have the right to do so, should they be
in the same situation in their country of origin and in the country
where they have to work. However, in the absence of an agreement
between the sending country and the country which hosts the RABIT
members, they will not be allowed to carry their arms. In other
words, if the same regulation on the carrying of arms applies
to the country of origin and to the country where they have to
work, RABIT agents will automatically have the right to carry
arms. In the case of a disagreement, both countries will have
to reach an agreement. I do not see any problem.
Q104 Baroness Tonge: So you could
have a Frontex operation where some of the guards contributed
by one country would be armed and the others were not?
Mr Deprez: Yes, indeed, it can be the case if
the country of origin, for example, decides that the agents sent
to the territory of another Member State are not authorised to
carry arms. According to Article 6(5) "While performing their
task and exercising their powers, members of the teams may"—"may"—"carry
service weapons, ammunition and equipment as authorised according
to the home Member State's national law. However, the host Member
State may prohibit the carrying of certain service weapons, ammunition
and equipment, provided that its own legislation applies the same
prohibition to its own border guards. The host Member State shall,
in advance of the deployment of the teams, inform the Agency of
the permissible service weapons, ammunition and equipment and
of the conditions for their use". You may have a totally
different situation if there is no agreement between the Member
State of origin and the Member State of the territory where they
have to work.
Q105 Chairman: Has this in practice
become an issue yet?
Mr Deprez: I don't know. I don't think so.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Yesterday they started the
first practice exercises.
Mr Deprez: It was one of the points on which
we had the most difficult discussion with the Council about this
regulation, but we reached an agreement and all Member States
agreed.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: It is very important to underline,
as Simon has said, that we do not have many competences in this
subject in the Parliament, but this regulation was under the co-decision
process and we worked hard and fast in the Parliament and we passed
it on the first reading. We had a very intensive dialogue and
co-operation with the Council and we all agreed that it was very
important to adopt this regulation, and we managed, with the Council
and the Commission and the Parliament, to get it. If there is
the political will I think we can go on.
Q106 Baroness Tonge: Just to come
back on that, would it not be more important then, with this difficulty
of countries not delivering what they have pledged, to sort out
this problem of who takes the people who are rescued before you
go into the RABITs regulation and have lots of arguments about
arms? Surely that is the key to the Frontex operation, to decide
that. Surely this is absolutely basic to the operation and it
is something that has not been decided yet.
Mr Deprez: There was a situation of emergency
though. Considering the situation at sea, the only people whose
lives are saved are those who have the chance to find the boat
of border guards. That is the reason why the RABIT system is also
protecting the lives of those people. It does not provide for
an organised system of rescue, but only for border control. That
is the point of this regulation. However, during this border control,
RABIT agents save people when recognising their boats, because
if the boats are not recognised on the sea those people will die.
That is a fact.
Mr Busuttil: I would like to add something to
that. First of all, we must make a clear distinction here. Being
obliged to contribute to RABITs is regulated by law and that is
very clear and, as Mr Deprez has said, there is the notion of
compulsory solidarity there. It could be political/quasi-judicial,
but let us hope. The other issue is on pledging and honouring
the pledges with respect to assets. That is not yet regulated
by law. Maybe you could propose that we have such a law. It would
be splendid for us to co-operate with you in that respect. I will
just make one point in this respect. Towards the end of May there
were three incidents in the Mediterranean Sea involving a number
of countries quarrelling amongst themselves as to who was going
to save and take people. Basically, these incidents—and
this is why the quarrelling started—took place in Libyan
waters, as happened yesterday. Following those incidents my country,
Malta, made a proposal to the EU Council of Ministers which basically
went as follows. It is clearly up to all of us to have the responsibility
to save lives, but if lives are saved in third country waters,
for example, Libya, and this third country refuses to take on
its own responsibilities under international law, for example
Libya, in that specific case the people whose lives are saved
will be apportioned among all 27 Member States on the basis of
proportionality. This is the proposal that my country made, referring
only to people saved in third country waters, and the reply that
it got was a deafening silence.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: We have it in our report.
Q107 Lord Marlesford: I want to focus
my question on the Mediterranean again which is such an important
area in this respect. We have had extremely good evidence from
the Armed Forces of Malta sent to us from the High Commission
of Malta in London, which gives us a lot of information, but I
would like to take advantage of having a representative from Spain
here to ask if he would like to tell us a little bit about how
at the moment Spain is organising its relationship with Frontex,
first of all which government department in Madrid is responsible
and, secondly, which units of the various Spanish forces would
normally be responsible for Frontex operations when called upon,
and also any information we could have as examples. Presumably
one of the major areas from which people are coming into Spanish
waters or into Spain is Morocco.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: First of all, as I said before,
Frontex is a tool; it is not a panacea. In the Spanish Government
we are starting several measures to fight against illegal migration,
and the one of the measures is based on the co-operation with
the third countries. For example, we have just started a pilot
project to have a centre of information for people in third countries.
We have started an information campaign in Senegal in order to
inform the people the risks they would take if they came to Spain
illegally. The crucial point with Morocco, with Senegal, with
all these countries, is the co-operation.
(There followed a short discussion off the
record)
In Spain it was shocking, all these pictures
on the television day by day showing thousands of immigrants trying
to reach our continent, but this is a very small part of our problem
because most illegal immigrants come through the airports. We
have begun special measures for people who come from Latin America
because they come to live in Spain but they never go back; they
stay. We have a real problem with this kind of illegal immigration
and also the cariocos arriving to our coasts
Q108 Chairman: And over-stayers,
people who have stayed longer than they should have done?
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Of course.
Q109 Lord Marlesford: Which government
department in Madrid has overall responsibility?
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Home Affairs, just for the
control of the borders. But also Employment and Social Affairs
Ministry because we are trying to make an integrated policy on
immigration and we are trying to stimulate legal migration because
we need it in Spain.
Mr Deprez: Not only in Spain.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Not only in Spain, but we
need it economically and demographically, so we are trying to
stimulate the channels for legal migration through cooperation
with third countries. We are trying to run a pilot projects to
offer legal contracts to possibly workers from countries of origin.
This is not new. I am the son of immigrants. My parents went to
Switzerland a long time ago and they went to Switzerland with
a contract. They had a contract signed in Spain and they went
to Switzerland. We are trying to do the same in Spain proposing
contracts to workers from Senegal or Morocco. We need these workers.
There is another very important point on the fight against illegal
immigration: the fight against illegal employment. That is the
most difficult thing because there is a lot of money and a lot
of interests in that field and we haven't had the political determination
to fight against that now. There is also a psychological dimension.
. If the illegal immigrants know that in Spain we pursue illegal
employment, in the end they will not come. They will not take
the risk of dying in trying to reach Europe if they have to go
back home because there is no work. Control of the borders is
very important but it is not the only tool. We have to make an
integrated policy at the European level.
Q110 Lord Jopling: But is not one
of the problems in Spain that once an illegal immigrant is within
the confines of Spain you can only hold them for 30 days and if
they are still there after 30 days they have to go and they are
free to go anywhere within the EU? Is there any move to try to
change that rule, which does make Spain a huge magnet for illegal
immigration?
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Last year we sent back more
than 99,000 illegal immigrants. Readmission policy is an important
pillar of our policy. We have developed an awareness campaign
explaining that if they arrive to our country, we will treat them
with dignity, respecting their human rights, but afterwards we
will send them back home. You can ask yourselves: "As Socialists
you could do that?" Yes, nevertheless this is only one instrument
of our integrated policy. When we approved our masse regularisation
process of illegal immigrants it was criticised by several Member
States. However, in November 2005 we had more than one million
illegal people working and living in Spain. There were three solutions
in order to resolve the problem. First, send back one million
people. Second, leave the people as they were without any rights
or any obligations. Third, which is what we have done, put in
place an integrated plan for migration. But before setting off
this integrated approach we had to resolve the situation, so we
proposed this regularisation linked to an employment contract.
That was the main difference in comparison with other countries
actions. By giving a contract to these migrants we gave them the
opportunity to participate in the economic and social system.
At the end we had 600,000 people who had rights, who paid taxes,
and we created 600,000 jobs. I would like to underline one thing.
We always explained that it was a one-time event, if not, everybody
would have come. We just have elaborated a Strategic Plan for
Citizenship and Integration 2007-10 with €2.005 millions
in order to integrate the immigrants into our society, to ensure
the immigrant population's access to public services, particularly
education, employment, social services, health, and housing, in
equal conditions to those of the autochthonous population.
Q111 Chairman: We are moving some
way away from Frontex. I do not mean that rudely, but to what
extent can Frontex provide any sort of help or co-operation for
this problem?
Mr Moreno Sanchez: In Spain we defend that Frontex
must be more and more efficient. Therefore FRONTEX must have the
resources that are necessary for its actions and more powers,
because the fight against illegal immigrations does not affect
only Spain.
Q112 Chairman: It is already the
case?
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Yes. The European Union's
Eastern countries are starting to face the same problem that we
have in the Mediterranean area.
Q113 Chairman: We are going to visit
the Ukraine border next week.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: For Spain it is crucial that
all Frontex's tools get to be implemented. Our Government have
also asked for permanent operations in all high-risk areas. We
defend the necessity of permanent joint monitoring patrols,
operating throughout the whole year and coordinated by Frontex
in all these areas.
Mr Deprez: At the moment, the problem of illegal
immigration in Spain is not a problem for Europe because the majority
of the immigrants stay in Spain. Why do they stay in Spain? Because
the majority of them come from Latin America, so they speak the
same language. They stay in Spain and they find jobs in Spain
because there are a lot of sectors providing them with legal and
illegal jobs, such as the agriculture, construction and other
fields, except for the industry.. So as I said and as far as my
experience is concerned—but I do not say that your experience
is the same as mine—illegal immigration in Spain is particularly
the problem of Spain and not of the rest of Europe.
Q114 Lord Jopling: Yes, but there
are a huge number of people who go from Africa to the Canaries
and from the Canaries they are taken then to Spain, and if they
stay 30 days they are then free to stay, and they are not South
Americans at all.
Mr Deprez: Yes, but if you compare the number
of people who come from Latin America with the people who come
from Africa, I think the percentage is 90/10, perhaps less, according
to statistics.
Q115 Lord Teverson: Again, my thanks
for the time you are giving to this and the depth of information
you have given us. I am particularly interested in whether you
think the current legal framework is adequate for accountability.
Clearly, you do not think it is adequate in terms of forcing every
Member State to do their bit but in terms of accountability is
it good enough, and in terms of yourselves as parliamentarians
do you feel that the European Parliament and your committee have
sufficient power to make Frontex accountable? What would you like?
What is your preference in terms of reporting?
Mr Busuttil: If I may I will start but I am
sure my colleagues will continue. I do not think there is sufficient
accountability and I think we ought to improve the accountability
of Frontex. The reason that there is such little accountability
to the European Parliament is in a way understandable. Frontex
was conceived as an agency that reports to Member States. It is
a Member State agency, if you like, and therefore for a long time
after it was set up the European Parliament was out of the picture
except once a year when it had to sign the budgetary cheque. This
time around we signed the cheque, a good cheque, as it were, but
we made clear conditions on the cheque. This we did in order to
increase accountability. I do not think that even this will be
sufficient. There is increasing pressure now from the European
Parliament to have an overall review of the mandate and the tasks
of Frontex and I think this is one of the things we will be doing
over the coming year. We are going to have a much closer look
not just at what Frontex is doing but also at what it should be
doing and whether what it should be doing is in line with its
mandate in the relevant regulation.
Q116 Chairman: Can I just interrupt
you there because I think we all know that the Commission are
due to produce a review on Frontex in the spring, I think in February
next year. How far do you see yourselves as European parliamentarians
involved in that review?
Mr Busuttil: As a matter of procedure the European
Commission comes to us with its proposals so we will be debating
its proposals and therefore we will be actively involved. I would
like also to take this opportunity to invite you to send us your
views once you are through with this inquiry on how you see the
mandate of Frontex in the future because I am certain that this
will have a very significant input in our work next year.
Q117 Chairman: You will, of course,
all be sent copies of our report when it emerges, and your contribution
today is an extremely helpful contribution towards that.
Mr Deprez: It must be clear that Frontex is
a European agency and not an inter-governmental agency. It is
part of the European system, the Community system, even if its
board members are sometimes also members of national governments.
Its budget is part of the budget of the European Union. Its financial
regulation belongs to the financial regulation of the Community
system. The status of its agents is regulated by European law.
We all have the opportunity to control Frontex to some extent,
except for specific operations. We cannot control specific operations
as the agency responds to the demands of the various Member States
which are facing an urgent situation. But apart from that, we
may control everything if we want to, and we are beginning to
do it. As my colleague said, we put some credits in the reserve
and we asked the Director of Frontex to come to us in order to
discuss their work programme for next year. I am going to meet
him tomorrow with the President of my committee and we will have
a first discussion.
Mr Moreno Sanchez: At the beginning they did
not come, but now they do.
Mr Deprez: No, at the beginning they did not
come but now they do because they understand that they have to
present their programme to the committee in the Parliament.
Q118 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
Frontex has a number of working agreements with third countries
and there are more being negotiated. Do you think these agreements
take sufficiently into account European Union action in other
fields, such as foreign policy and development co-operation, or
the human rights record of the third countries concerned?
Mr Deprez: I am not able to answer this question.
Mr Busuttil: I would like to come in on that
question to tell you one country with which Frontex does not have
an agreement. It is Libya, and this explains why we have such
major difficulties, whereas, on the contrary, ever since the European
Union and Frontex started engaging with countries such as Mauritania
and Senegal we have seen incredibly positive results in that area.
As Mr Moreno Sanchez has said, there has been this year a huge
reduction in the number of immigrants arriving in the Canary Islands
and therefore Spain, so clearly the co-operation of third countries
is crucial.
Mr Deprez: I have read your question. I think
it is very strange, if I may express my feeling, because it says,
"Frontex has a number of working agreements with third countries",
but it is not the task of Frontex to take into account the fields
of foreign policy, development co-operation or human rights. It
is not the task of Frontex to say anything on those fields. I
do not understand the question. Foreign policy, development co-operation,
human rights policy are the responsibility of the European Union
as such. They do not belong to working agreements between Frontex
and other countries. You say Frontex has a number of working agreements
with third countries. Are you sure of that?
Mr Moreno Sanchez: Maybe it is the Commission
which—
Mr Deprez: The Commission, but are you sure
Frontex has working agreements with third countries?
Q119 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
Maybe it is the way this question has been framed. You said you
had had co-operation from Mauritania and Senegal.
Mr Deprez: Yes, between Spain and those countries,
not Frontex. There are agreements between some Member States and
countries of origin of illegal immigrants and there are some agreements
between the European Union as such and countries of origin but
I do not know if there are working agreements between Frontex
and --- I do not know.
Ms Calers: If I may, I know that, for example,
there is a working agreement with Ukraine, but it is a working
agreement for co-operation between Frontex and the border guards
department of Ukraine.
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