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Press Briefing: 11am Thursday 19 June 2003
Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Benjamin Netanyahu, European Council and Asylum/Refugees.
Benjamin Netanyahu
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister had met the Israeli Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Downing Street this morning. The meeting had focussed primarily on regional issues, as you would expect, as well as the Middle East peace process where the Prime Minister had taken the opportunity to reiterate his commitment to seeing the implementation of the roadmap and his willingness to do everything both he and the British Government could to help that process. During his visit to London, Mr Netanyahu would also be meeting people in the City, as well as other members of the Government.
European Council
The PMOS went through the itinerary for the European Council in Greece for today and tomorrow. The Summit would begin with the usual session chaired by Pat Cox, the President of the European Parliament. This would be followed by a working session on justice and home affairs issues. This evening a dinner would be held for Heads of Government at which they would discuss the Middle East and Iraq. Tomorrow morning would be devoted to Valery Giscard D’Estaing’s presentation on his work on the Convention. Heads of Government would then be given a maximum of 5 minutes each to intervene. These would be initial reactions rather than a detailed negotiation process. The most significant issue to come out of the Summit would be the start date of the IGC. After lunch with foreign ministers, the final session would look at the draft conclusions and cover other topics such as progress on EU enlargement and the Global Health Fund. The summit was due to conclude at around 6pm local time tomorrow evening, which was when the Prime Minister, like most other Heads of Government, would depart. Jack Straw would stay on to attend the EU-Western Balkans summit on Saturday.
Asylum/Refugees
Asked about plans to set up regional protection zones in order to address the problem of asylum, the PMOS said that it was important to put this story into context. The proposals should be seen alongside the measures we were already taking to tackle the problems associated with asylum in the UK. We had put in place our own system which had tightened up the rules and made the process more efficient. This had already had a significant impact, although there was clearly a lot more work to be done. Given asylum was a global problem, it was appropriate to look for longer term global solutions on an international basis. The UNHCR estimated that there were twelve million genuine refugees in the world, most of whom were based in their region of origin. The idea of regional protection zones flowed from the desire to offer those refugees enhanced protection near their regions of origin or conflict zones which would obviously reduce their need to flee in the first place. At that point it would be easier to look for more durable solutions in terms of addressing their needs. This idea was still being discussed and could possibly be raised during the course of the European Council. There was a hope that a pilot scheme would be up and running by the end of the year, but the detail of the proposals had yet to be finalised at this stage.
Asked if he would agree that regional protection zones would simply act as magnet for asylum seekers, the PMOS said that this idea was one strand in a wide range of different solutions to address a deep-rooted problem. Obviously a number of issues would need to be looked at. However, when people were fleeing persecution, it was important to look at whether their protection could be enhanced in order to shield them from people traffickers. Of course no one was suggesting that this one idea was a solution in itself to the whole asylum problem. It was not and we were not over-cooking it. However, we believed it was certainly worth looking at and discussing. It was supported by the UNHCR and European Commission, and a number of other countries had also expressed an interest in discussing the proposals with us.
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