the responsibility for border control and refugee protection onto its neighbors [reference
to noncompliance with regional and international law]’ (Amnesty International, 2005,
ECRE, 2005a). UNHCR joined this debate by considering “the lack of adequate
safeguards in the super-safe and safe country provisions to be potentially dangerous to
refugees. Refugees may find themselves forced back to their home countries, in direct
contravention of international law, as a result of chain deportations by a string of
countries, starting with an EU member state” (UNHCR, 2004). Jesuit Refugee Service
issued a press release illustrating such harm, using the example of expulsions from Spain
(Ceuta and Melilla) to Morocco, and subsequently further afield (Jesuit Refugee Service,
2005a).
Concurrently, NGOs concentrated their efforts on the European Parliament,
hoping to raise awareness—awareness that could lead to the Parliament’s undermining of
the draft—about the problems with the draft Directive. They did so by sending proposed
text for amendments to the European Parliament’s rapporteur in the LIBE Committee,
MEP Kreissl-Dörfler (see, for example Jesuit Refugee Service, 2005b). The rationale
provided for the proposed amendments clearly demonstrate the legal/technical
sophistication with which these arguments were substantiated, reflecting a thorough
understanding of the regional and international legal instruments that are applicable in
this case. The Parliament eventually rendered its opinion in September 2005 and offered
no less than 102 amendments to the Draft Directive (European Parliament, 2005b).
These efforts notwithstanding, and much to the chagrin of many of the
stakeholders, this proposal was adopted by the JHA Council in December 2005 (JHA
Council, 2005), ignoring all of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament
during the consultation process. The STC issue was left inconclusive at that time and
when the JHA Council met again in February 2006, it charged the Commission with
doing further work on this matter and indicated that the Council plans to “consult” the
European Parliament before reaching a final decision on STC (JHA Council, 2006). This
served to draw the ire of the Parliament, which was under the impression that such an
instrument would be concluded by co-decision, and seems to have galvanized another
round of (arguably last ditch) efforts on the part of NGOs to battle the Procedures
Directive. This latest round of advocacy takes us both to new procedural arguments as
well as continuing the substantive objections to STC outlined above.
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