What status for refugees ?

"Governments under populist and tabloid pressure can be blinkered in defining what constitutes repression or safety to justify keeping unwelcome strangers from their gates," the progressive daily writes, reacting to the UNHCR report. "Europe, that prosperous, democratic and multicultural magnet for so many, should stop demonising migrants and refugees as a problem and rather see them as a solution to its own plummeting birth rates, pensions crises and ageing societies. The EU ... should not try, as Tony Blair has suggested, to rewrite the 1951 [refugee] convention, or imitate populist moves by Australia to outsource asylum applications and weaken the core principle of protection. The UN refugee agency has done what the UN does best - think globally, in this case about the duty to provide a fairer deal for ordinary people who are forced to lead extraordinary lives."

» more information (external link, English)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Europe

» To the complete press review of Thursday, April 20, 2006