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Political Asylum: The West European Experience
From: London School of Economics and Political Science
| By:
Christopher T. Husbands |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
 In recent years the issue of asylum seekers in Europe has become a contentious and controversial item on the political agenda. Despite widespread media coverage of the issue, there are many misunderstandings about asylum seeking. Christopher T. Husbands, reader in sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has investigated the 1999 data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees relating to asylum applications and acceptances in major western European countries over the last decade. In this article he examines the data in the light of debates about the treatment of asylum seekers and the possible future of asylum policy in the European Union (EU). |
 he emergence of the issues of political asylum and of the treatment of asylum seekers on to the domestic agendas of most of the countries of western Europe has become an accepted fact of contemporary politics. It is true that patterns and practices differ to some extent from country to country within western Europe, but almost everywhere the "bolt the door" attitude of the mid-1980s towards immigrants in general has been supplemented, or replaced, by an analogous attitude of exclusion towards asylum seekers. So-called "moral panics" about asylum and the supposed abuse of it have in recent years been fomented by sections of the popular media and by certain politicians in all the significant asylum receiving countries of western Europe, including Austria, Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (UK). In some cases, as in the UK, there has been an associated moral panic about clandestine immigration, and against the human traffickers who organise this. |
Although some western European countries, such as Germany, experienced quite substantial numbers of asylum applications even well before the 1980s, the typical applicant then was an escapee from an Eastern Bloc country; countries such as the UK and France granted most such applicants full asylum or permission to stay with little demur. However, since the mid-1980s and especially in the early 1990s, the geography of asylum application has changed, partly in terms of distribution within western Europe of applicants' countries of destination, but more particularly in terms of their countries of origin. Third World uncertainties and unrest, as well as civil war in the Balkans, have generated particular dynamics for exodus. |
Counting asylum seekers
Official data on asylum applications have some deficiencies that are acknowledged by those compiling them. Whilst numbers of applicants with respect to western European countries are of acceptable accuracy, data on country of origin may be less reliable. For example, applicants registered as having come from certain countries, such as India, may in fact have originated in, say, Sri Lanka. Even so, these official data provide a good general picture of the asylum situation. |
Table 1 displays numbers of asylum applicants in 15 western European countries for each year since 1990, a year of particular significance because it was the first full one after the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc, thus ushering in a new regime for asylum politics. The trend in overall numbers during the decade was noticeably influenced by events in former Yugoslavia, which produced particular peaks in 1992 and again in 1999. During 2000 there was a substantial decline in applicants from the former Yugoslavia (though this has remained a country producing a large number of applicants), but there were significant increases in applicants from Iraq and Iran. In November 2000, for example, there were only 395 cases received in the UK from the former Yugoslavia, compared with 1,150 and 735 respectively from Iraq and Iran. |
However, what these data demonstrate most clearly is that there is no clear west-Europe-wide experience of asylum applications. Not every country shares in the general overall trend, and there are a number of examples of specific-country experience. The sudden surge of numbers for Italy in 1991 reflected events in nearby Albania. Noticeably reduced numbers, in comparison with each respective previous year, for Austria in 1993, Germany in 1994, The Netherlands in 1995, and the UK in 1996 reflect to greater or lesser degree the short-term impact of greater domestic legislative restriction. Sweden's very high figure for 1992 marks its particular generosity towards refugees from former Yugoslavia. In fact, across the decade as a whole there are perhaps three separate trajectory patterns among these fifteen countries: one group with a similar pattern comprises Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Sweden; a second contains Austria, Finland, France, Greece, Italy and Switzerland; the third group contains Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway and the UK. |
In order to determine whether a country should be considered a high application one, it is necessary to assess the number of applications against the size of its indigenous population. This has been done for the 1999 data and from that analysis it emerges that these fifteen countries contain three quite apparent clusters. High application countries proved to be Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria and Norway. Medium application countries were Sweden, Denmark, the UK and Germany. Low application countries proved to include Finland, Italy, France, Spain, Greece and Portugal. |
The position of the UK is perhaps slightly misrepresented by the per-capita number and precise ranking (though not in terms of its cluster allocation), and by the fact that its data are case based and so may include an applicant's dependants within a single "case". Moreover, the rankings of particular countries change somewhat from year to year but it is none the less the case that, of the high application countries, Switzerland and perhaps Belgium and The Netherlands have more or less consistently held this status. Of the low application counties, Finland, France, Spain, Greece and Portugal have consistently been so. In fact, one of the best predictors of being a high-application country is already to have a relatively high resident foreigner/ethnic minorities population, a relationship to which only France is a major exception. |
Where are asylum seekers applying?
 The accompanying graphics show the favoured countries of destination within western Europe with those from the fifteen countries of origin that in 1999 produced most cases heading to western Europe. These destinations reveal the influence of a number of factors, including historic or post-war migration links, colonial links, linguistic or cultural affinity and sometimes geographical propinquity. In some cases, these factors may have combined to influence routes now used by contemporary human traffickers. What these data show most obviously is that choice of destination is in no way random. |
Those from the former Yugoslavia favour Germany and Switzerland. Iraqis, (especially) Turks, Armenians and Sierra Leoneans also choose Germany. Somalis, Sri Lankans, and those from the Russian Federation go to the UK (Somalia has long been consumed by civil war but the northern part of the country was a former British colony, making those fleeing more likely to seek asylum in the UK than elsewhere in Europe). Iranians choose Austria and Germany. Chinese primarily choose France and also the UK, although the USA is a popular alternative. Pakistanis favour Germany and the UK particularly. Those asylum applicants from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) go to France or Belgium, doubtless for cultural and linguistic reasons. However, there is at least one example where the "previous colony effect" is strongly negative rather than positive: very few asylum seekers from Algeria go to France, although illegal immigration does occur--Germany, Spain and the UK are greatly preferred by actual asylum seekers from Algeria. |
The countries of origin
These graphics also use 1999 data. However, they are presented from the perspective of the composition of the asylum seeking population in each country of destination. Substantial proportions of asylum seekers in Austria, Belgium, Germany and especially Switzerland were from former Yugoslavia. Indeed, Switzerland's special status as a high application country is partly explained by its popularity among those from former Yugoslavia. In 1999 almost two-thirds of Switzerland's applications were from the former Yugoslavia. However, even without this disproportion, Switzerland would still have been a high application country in 1999. The asylum seeking populations of Denmark in particular as well as Greece, Norway and Sweden comprised high numbers from Iraq. Almost half of Finland's small population of asylum applicants in 1999 came, uniquely, from Slovakia, and almost a third of Portugal's tiny number came from Sierra Leone. Italy had a large "various" source in 1999, although many ought to have been properly classified in one of the actual country-of-origin categories. |
Are the rejected ejected?
In theory at least, application processing is intended to ascertain whether an applicant meets the criteria of a refugee under the terms of the 1951 United Nations (Geneva) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, or of its 1967 Protocol, and so whether he or she may thereupon be offered asylum status. In practice, there is in most countries the possibility of more than a "yes" or a "no" outcome. |
In the UK, for example, an applicant may be recognised as a refugee and granted asylum status (relatively unusual), be not recognised as a refugee but granted exceptional leave to remain (at one point also relatively unusual, but increasingly used since 1998), or be refused asylum as well as exceptional leave to remain. The last outcome may be given for one of several reasons: the failure of the claim to meet the Convention criteria, the fact that the claimant passed through a "safe third country" en route to the country of destination, non-compliance with the rules of the asylum procedure, and so on. However, in practice in many countries, even apparent "rejection" does not necessarily lead to deportation and, in fact, relatively few rejectees in many countries are formally and physically deported--a matter that has occasioned some political controversy. |
In particular cases the determination of asylum status covers the procedures both of the UNHCR and also of the national government. Acceptance-rate data are universally presented as the number of acceptances in a particular period (say, a calendar year), usually with the various acceptance statuses, divided by the number of applications within the same period, a quotient that by convention is then percentaged. There are no published cohort data, which would show the outcomes of the actual cases presented within a specified period, even if such outcomes were determined after the expiry of that period. |
There is a further complication in discussing acceptance rates. For most countries there is an initial determination process (sometimes called a "first-instance" process), followed by the possibility of appeals and other subsequent decisions. Official statistics about acceptance rates for some countries normally cover only first-instance decisions, but others include first-instance and appeal decisions separately or together. Table 2 covers, where possible, only first-instance decisions, but in several cases first-instance and appeal decision data are not available in disaggregated form. The lesson to be derived from these data is that there is an extraordinary variety of outcomes--measured here in terms of the granting of asylum or sometimes of the national equivalent of exceptional leave to remain--between different western European countries, even when dealing with applicants from the same country who have presumptively, considered in totality, fled from the same mix of objective circumstances. Applicants from Iraq, for example, are likely to be much more favourably received in Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden or Switzerland than in The Netherlands, Greece, Spain or Austria. Applicants from Yugoslavia received short shrift in Germany and The Netherlands, compared with their treatment in most other western European countries, although one suspects that, whilst some rejectees thereupon left voluntarily, many merely disappeared. Certainly, there have been no reports of deportations from Germany or The Netherlands that would correspond to these levels of rejected applications. |
Cultures of bureaucracy
It is interesting to speculate on the reasons for these variations, although it is remarkably difficult to derive firm conclusions. Decisions by relatively low-level bureaucrats about immigration and asylum matters are probably made on innumerable occasions each day, but there are remarkably few sociological studies (at least in western Europe) about the actual facets of such decision-making. It is a strangely secretive process, kept so by the relevant authorities and perhaps for understandable reasons. However, it is clear from anecdotal evidence that bureaucratic cultures about the role of a country's immigration service may impact upon the readiness to accept, as do the culture of tolerance in a particular country towards immigrants and the obvious discretion exercised by immigration officers. It is striking to compare the overall acceptance rates of the USA and Canada, for example, with those of many western European countries. USA's acceptance rate in 1999 was nearly 90 per cent. |
The treatment of asylum-seekers
It may fairly be regarded as axiomatic that all European governments are seeking to reduce the number of asylum applicants whom they have to process. There is scarcely a modern instance that may be quoted where a high number of applications for asylum is not seen, either explicitly or surreptitiously, as implying the threat of some sort of social problem or disorder. Thus, many countries' procedures include elements intended to discourage applicants from seeking asylum there. |
Some countries resort quite routinely to some form of detention towards applicants whose cases for asylum are regarded prima facie as weak and who are also judged likely therefore to disappear; such instances are often those being accorded a "fast track" procedure. Both the UK and The Netherlands are examples of countries that use de facto incarceration in some circumstances. Such detention during the determination of refugee status is not unlawful under the 1951 Convention, although it is arguably against its spirit. The concept of a "manifestly unfounded" claim for asylum, justifying some form of so-called "fast track" procedure, is now a quite general one throughout Europe, though operationalised somewhat differently in various countries. The pre-1997 Conservative UK government operated with a "white list" of supposedly safe countries of origin, the asylum claims of whose applicants were therefore deemed ipso facto inadmissible. The subsequent UK government has formally abolished this principle, although one suspects that it continues to operate more surreptitiously or subliminally when immigration officers are making decisions on asylum cases. |
How asylum seekers are to be supported during the processing of their applications and where they should be housed have been issues of substantial controversy in a number of countries. The UK government, following the terms of its White Paper of July 1998, Fairer, Faster And Firmer--A Modern Approach To Immigration And Asylum, has introduced a voucher system for support (plus a very small allowance in cash), instead of general cash welfare payments, a change not approved by most organisations working to assist asylum seekers. An ongoing attempt to disperse asylum seekers and those granted asylum away from London and the south-east has met with only limited success and is now well below target, especially as many of those concerned have returned to ethnic peers in London and the South-East, sometimes to avoid the experience of racial violence or xenophobic behaviour. The German attempt in the early 1990s to disperse asylum seekers into the new regions of the former German Democratic Republic led to a number of notorious instances of racial violence. |
Refugees, once their status has been determined as such, have a number of rights of employment and self-employment spelt out in the 1951 Convention, usually on a par with non-refugee foreign residents in the respective country (although this approach failed to anticipate the inter-nationality reciprocities of the contemporary EU). However, the applicants' right to work pending the outcome of their cases has been more controversial, and it is an issue of some significance when the full decision process sometimes takes, not the sought-for few months as a maximum, but many months or even years. Some German regions and The Netherlands have introduced a restricted right to work in such a situation and the issue has been one raised in other countries, such as the UK, especially in the light of much evidence that most asylum seekers are not ill educated and unskilled but instead often well trained with needed skills such as nursing or medicine. One suspects that, in any case, numerous asylum seekers work clandestinely whilst their cases are being decided, although such a work status is often a barrier to a type of employment that would allow them to exercise all their job skills. |
The possible future of asylum policy in the EU
Asylum has long been an issue of central importance within the EU, and particularly to those members within it who subscribe to the Schengen Agreement on cross-border security matters signed in 1985 (the UK and Ireland are not signatories, however). For many years consistently high application countries such as Germany have sought some form of EU-wide harmonisation of asylum policy, something to which many other EU countries have objected because they saw it merely as a ploy to disperse applicants more widely around the EU and thus to oblige them to accept more. |
Several of the countries that experienced an early-1990s surge in numbers introduced restrictive legislation based in part on a "safe third country" basis, as agreed in the Dublin Convention Determining the State Responsible for Examining Applications for Asylum Lodged in One of the Member States of the European Communities signed in June 1990. Thus, an asylum seeker from, say, the Democratic Republic of Congo, making, or seeking to make, his or her application in the UK but who has passed through France in order to reach the UK could be returned to France for the determination of his or her refugee status by the latter country. The Treaty of Amsterdam (signed in 1997) increased, in theory, the role of the EU in matters of immigration (and asylum) within the member states, but it would be difficult to demonstrate any dramatic change in the light of that. Austria, when chairing the European Commission in the second half of 1998, raised the question of abandoning the 1951 Convention as a basis for refugee determination in the generally acknowledged very different circumstances of the contemporary world. Other countries have also publicly considered the matter but, none the less, the Convention (plus the 1967 Protocol) remains the basic document for refugee determination. |
There are areas of policy where it is indisputable that the EU has had a significant, sometimes crucial, impact upon the legislation and practices of member states. One might mention employment law for providing numerous examples of this. However, it remains a fact that, despite calls for EU-wide harmonisation of asylum rules, asylum practices themselves remain stubbornly country specific. One suspects that most countries see the issue as too domestically sensitive to feel free to derogate it to the EU without loss of popularity among their own voters. Perhaps ironically, EU enlargement to include former Eastern Bloc countries (and others), when or if it occurs, is likely to consolidate rather than weaken this preference for country-level specificity. |
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