Matt F said:
So what you need a central European processing centre for asylum seekers - say in Brussels. All applicants must go there to be processed - any arriving in other countries are taken to the centre in Belgium. This would have to be a huge place where people have to stay until their cases are processed.
Once assessed, the genuine asylum seeker is placed in a suitable European country, based on each country taking its fair share. The applicants choice of country may be considered but it cannot be guaranteed.
Any failing may be allowed to appeal, but if they still fail they are returned to their country of origin.
Wouldn't be that difficult would it?
Matt.
As a debate at uni we discussed asylum policy, I was on the side of some level of reform (cue the other side calling us xenophobes and racists there as well as here).
The proposal somebody came up with to decide how to fairly distribute these people within the EU was based on a variety of metrics (IIRC these included population, average population density, GDP/per capita, existing government and welfare spending, unemployment levels amongst others) which would somehow be combined to give an index which could be used to decide which country shout get which numbers of people. In a similar way as the UN HDI gives a more balanced measure of development than just (for example) looking at GNP/capita, we felt this would provide a more balanced view than would be possible by using a single metric alone.
There are certainly problems to this, the number crunching and the weighting to give certain measurements would certainly provoke argument, and there are difficult human questions to answer (regarding the separate of families) but I don't see why there shouldn't be some form of system to ensure that the asylum seekers should be spread evenly over EU so that the financial burden is shared equally (those countries who can afford to receive more asylum seekers than those who are less able to support them).
At this point I expect somebody will be frothing at the mouth for suggesting that asylum seekers are burden, whilst I'll happily agree that many immigrants make a positive contribution, if you look at people who claim asylum, you have people with no belongings, nowhere to live, and often with language problems that make work for them very difficult, turning up somewhere and needing things providing for them.
I feel we do have some duty to help those arriving from abroad who genuinely are in need, and have no problem with doing so, but to suggest that our kindness has no financial cost is short sighted surely? Why should the UK pay a higher cost to support these people than the rest of Europe? Surely it should be based upon ability to support these asylum seekers until they can find work and support themselves, rather than the current situation whereby those countries which by virtue of being more kind and open end up receiving far more than a 'fair' share of asylum seekers.
Theres probably many problems to the implementation which need to be ironed out, but such a radical reform is bound to have some complex issues.
My 2p