THE EU has demanded that the US answer certain questions before Europe accepts detainees from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, ranging from how guilty prisoners are to why they can’t stay on American soil. “We are entitled to ask the question, if they’re innocent, why are they still in Guantanamo?” said European justice commissioner Jacques Barrot. “Secondly, why can’t they stay in the United States?”
EU justice ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday discussed taking low-risk detainees from the American camp, as long as they are cleared for release and can’t return to their home countries for fear of persecution or torture.
The Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, will lead a mission to Washington in mid-March to put their questions to President Barack Obama, who promised to close the camp within a year of taking office.
The European Parliament, at the beginning of this month, voted overwhelmingly in favour of accepting detainees. While several EU member states, including Ireland, Spain and Portugal, have indicated that they would broadly support such a move, the EU’s open border policy means that any decision taken by one country will affect its neighbours. Certain EU members are cautious about the legal issues that would arise from accepting discharged prisoners.
Ultimately, said Czech justice minister Ivan Langer, it will be up to each country to make the decision, although he did stress the need for a co-ordinated European approach, including the sharing of information between all EU countries, regardless of whether or not they have accepted prisoners.
He said that it was primarily an American issue and up to the government there to find a solution.
Neither Mr Barrot nor Mr Langer would be drawn on the details of a confidential policy document which reportedly voices European fears about the US prison at Bagram in Afghanistan becoming a second Guantánamo.
EU justice ministers also agreed to look into a European Commission proposal for an office to harmonise European asylum requests, rules on EU citizens and their families moving between member states and the problem of illegal immigration. Ireland and Malta signed a bilateral deal to pool information on drug trafficking, crime lords and terrorists.