BRUSSELS: Amnesty International has called on the EU to rebalance its justice and home affairs policies to provide better protection of human rights. The organisation expressed concern about proposals to establish camps outside Europe to prevent illegal immigrants from reaching the EU.
Mr Dick Oosting, director of Amnesty International's EU office, said concerns about security and illegal immigration were legitimate, but the EU's agenda had become unbalanced.
"Up until now, counter-terrorism and controlling illegal immigration have, to some extent, been allowed to hijack the EU's justice and home affairs agenda. Amnesty International believes the EU must now rebalance its policies to ensure it does not compromise the very rights it professes to be protecting."
EU justice and home affairs ministers meet at the Dutch seaside resort of Scheveningen this week to discuss a new five-year plan for the EU's "Area of Freedom, Security and Justice".
Justice and home affairs have become one of the busiest legislative areas for the EU in recent years, but Amnesty claims too few resources are allocated to protecting human rights within the EU.
Ms Susie Alegre, an Amnesty expert on human rights and criminal justice, said increased police and judicial co-operation between EU countries left citizens facing different standards in terms of access to justice and conditions during detention.
She said the EU must make funding available to enable countries to provide legal access, and to monitor human rights standards throughout the EU.
"If the EU is actually serious about fundamental rights and access to justice, it's time to work out where the money is coming from."
Italy's interior minister Mr Giuseppe Pisanu said yesterday that a joint plan with Germany to set up camps for asylum-seekers in Libya would proceed.
"The camps will go ahead. There was never a problem with the proposal, there were only polemics that ended up in newspapers," he told Il Messaggero newspaper.
EU ministers will discuss the plan at this week's meeting in the Netherlands, but Amnesty's Ms Daphne Bouteillet said yesterday that a number of important questions remained to be answered.
She said it was unclear if the asylum applications made in the camps would be processed by the host country or by the EU, and if they would be detention camps or reception centres.
"Will we see the interception of refugees and migrants on the high seas, and their transfer to these reception centresWe believe there is not enough legal protection in countries around the EU to process applications."
Among the countries under consideration for such asylum camps are Tunisia, Kenya and Ukraine as well as Libya. Libya has not signed the Geneva Convention, and was viewed as a rogue state by many EU countries until earlier this year.
Mr Sean Love, director of Amnesty International's Irish section, called on the Government to use its influence over the EU agenda to ensure that human rights are respected.
"Ireland's national law makers too must acknowledge the flawed nature of much of the EU agenda.
"It is no excuse to say that Ireland must follow the EU line in national legislation when fundamental human rights enshrined in binding human rights treaties are in danger."