Sweden
will take over the Presidency of the European Union (EU) at a pivotal
time in the development of European refugee law and policy. We are now
ten years on from the Council Meeting in Tampere in 1999, where Heads
of State and Government set themselves the objective of developing a
Common European Asylum System (CEAS) by 2010. With a new 5-year
programme due to be introduced during the Swedish Presidency, the
Stockholm Programme provides the EU with the opportunity to build a
fair and efficient common asylum system, which could serve as a model
to other regions of the world.
ECRE urges Sweden
to take a rights-respecting approach during its Presidency, to seek to
uphold Europe’s longstanding human rights tradition, and to play a
leading role in promoting fair and humane European policies towards
asylum seekers and refugees.
ECRE Memorandum to Swedish Presidency (98.47 KB)