PURPOSE: to present a Commission proposal for a Council Directive laying down minimum standards on the reception of applicants for asylum in Member States.
CONTENT: this proposal has been drafted on the basis of a number of preparatory activities and background materials. Most recently, the Commission thought it appropriate to have bilateral consultations with the Member States, on the basis of a discussion paper concerning the future Community instrument on reception conditions for applicants for asylum in the European Union. Against this background, the Commission is pursuing the following aims:
- implementing point (1)(b) of the first paragraph of Article 63 of the Treaty, paragraph 36(b)(V) of the Vienna Action Plan, Conclusion 14 of the Tampere European Council and the second part of the paragraph on a fair and efficient asylum procedure of the Scoreboard presented to the Council and the European Parliament in March 2000;
- setting out the minimum standards of reception conditions for applicants for asylum in the European Union, normally sufficient to ensure them a dignified standard of living;
- identifying the different reception conditions available to applicants for asylum procedures as well as for groups with special needs including minors and the cases for their exclusion, reduction and review;
- outlining the possible actions to improve the efficiency of the national reception systems;
- limiting secondary movements of applicants for asylum influenced solely by the diversity of the applicable rules on reception conditions;
- ensuring that applicants for asylum are afforded comparable living conditions in all Member States as, according to the Dublin Convention, they do not have the right to choose the Member State that should examine their application. Furthermore, the proposal is composed of five sets of rules concerning:
1) the objective and scope of the proposal;
2) the reception conditions that should be granted, in principle, at all stages and in all kinds of asylum procedures;
3) the requirements (or minimum standards) of some reception conditions (material reception conditions and health care) which Member States are required to ensure;
4) provisions for reducing or withdrawing access to some or all reception conditions as well as the possibility of review before a court of a decision on reduction or withdrawal of reception conditions;
5) several rules to ensure its complete implementation as well as the improvement of the national reception systems.�