At the end of March 2004 EU Parliament is to pronounce itself on the agreement concerning the opening of a project of joint repatriation via charter flights.
Joint flights among EU countries are collective deportations, which are prohibitted by the Human rights EU Convention art. 4.
The JAI Board at EU Commission agrees with this Italian proposal of starting a pilot project in order to open, finance and organize irregular migrants repatriation on a European scale.
Cimade launched a petition against charter flights, the petition was signed, sustained and promoted by 300 associations and groups all over the world. Cimade appeals to all the ones who defend human rights, the appeal asks to oppose this agreement and denounces the serious violation of human rights necessarily implied by collective deportations.
We interviewed Caroline Intrand. Caroline explains the proposal, the violation of human rights and her point of view on EU decisions.
Question – Eu council signed an agreement on collective expulsions. Now EU Parliament will need to decide. Can you explain us what you think the discussion at Parliament is to be like?
Answer– First of all, Italy promoted an initiative in order to collectively organize charter flights to repatriate irregular migrant citizens. Past November an agreement was reached through the Council. To adopt the agreement EU Parliament must express itself on the matter. The Parliament opinion is not binding. The procedure provides for that an mp writes a report on the proposal, this report is to be evaluated by another Commission, the one that takes care of public freedom. The report must end either with the rejection or with the approval of the same initiative. February 19th 2004 the quoted Commission rejected this initiative. At the end of March it will be the EU Parliament duty to express itself on the proposal.
Q: Do you think the Parliament might reject the charter flights proposal?
A: The whole Commission rejected the proposal, only one member agreed with it. This means that all political coalitions agreed to reject the initiative. We could therefore think that the Parliament will do the same but we hold no certainties.
Q: Do you think that the pressure movements and humanitarian organization did against charter flights influenced the Commission decision or could it be that governments want to remain independent on this issue?
A: I think that the most important thing is that EU Council, formed by countries’ ministries representatives, assumes proposals without referring to the Parliament. In other words, the Council does not care about the Parliament point of view. I believe there’s a sort of rebellion against this. EU is focusing on a very worrying idea of immigration flows management. I anyway think that mps are very responsible on the matter.
Q: Vittorino, member of EU Council, said to the JAI Council that joint charter flights are not collective deportations. What do you think?
A: Cimade tried to prove that once big numbers of citizens are repatriated and repatriations are administratively organized on a communitarian scale we are facing collective expulsions. The Commission and the Council say that charter flights cannot be juridically considered collective expulsions up to the evaluation of each person situation. The Italian proposal does not provide for evaluations of each person’s case. Many countries do not allow appeals against expulsions. The organization of charter flights has therefore a stronger impact than individual evaluations. Anyway, when 70 people are embarked on a flight what we face is a collective expulsion.
Q: What do charter flights imply?
A: The first of our worries is that when charter flights are organized also arrests are being organized since the flight needs to be filled with people going the same direction. This is a first discrimination. There are also other problems linked to violence police could make use of. There is a specific report, a French mp presented, which talks about expulsion organized towards Africa from France in March 2003. Humiliations and abuse are always occurring. Collective expulsions also imply the use of stronger coercive methods than individual repatriations since the greater number of repatriated people could make police afraid of collective rebellion. The EU convention on human rights art. 4 is being violated in fact this article prohibits collective expulsions.
Q: EU commission is also organizing a EU agency for the organization of repatriation and for the cooperation at borders. What do you think about the European trend of controlling movements of people within EU territories?
A: This agency is another instrument the Commission wants to use to control irregular immigration. It organizes repressive and police measures which do not stand in a democratic control of citizens. This is not being accepted by EU Parliament and by civil society. This agency could be also in charge of expulsions management and this is extremely worrying since the agency itself wouldn’t be controlled. There also are some aspects which remain unclear and they concern the functioning of the agency: we do not understand whether this charter flights will be financed by EU or not. There is also a more general criticism on EU immigration management policies: EU is actually focusing on stopping clandestine immigration whereas it should focus on a policy of welcomming people, EU in fact needs migrants. Finally, fundamental human rights and freedom of movement should be respected.
Q: The petition you promoted past November was sustained by others in many EU countries. How is the campaign going on?
A: The campaign was presented during the ESF and just before the JAI Council agreement. 2,000 people, 50 EU mps, 380 organizations and several welknown people signed it through out the world. It is being sustained by African organizations, by Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, the Netherlands. Vittorino answered us and said that all EU countries should control that citizens do not misunderstand charter flights for collective expulsions. Vittorino is starting to understand that civil society is worried about the proposal. We answered back and we wrote that we are afraid that EU is badly managing immigration and it is using too strong means to repatriate people.
Q: How will this campaign develop itself?
A: We shall organize a press conference when the Parliament is about to vote. We want to start reflecting on EU immigration policies which, via using similar to this methods, is trying to develop a business of repatriations. Charter flights, detention centres are the worst example of immigration policies. We really would like that next EU elections candidates depict this immigration policies and express themselves against expulsions, charter flights and detention centres.