EU enlargement may "overwhelm" asylum systems in new members states, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Ruud Lubbers, warned today.
Speaking after an address to EU ministers in Dublin, Mr Lubbers said the harmonistation of legislation on asylum seekers in an enlarged community will fundamentally change the pattern of asylum applications in the EU.
He said: "This could lead to an increase in the numbers of asylum seekers needing to be processed in new border states."
Fingerprinting and registration under the Eurodac system, currently in operation, means asylum seekers can be more easily identified if they move between member states.
Some of the new members are experiencing sharp increases in asylum applicants ahead of May 1st but lack adequate facilities to cope. According to the United Nations, Slovenia saw a 92 per cent increase in the number of asylum claims last year.
Under the "Dublin II" regulation, asylum seekers can be sent back to the first state they entered. "In practice, this is likely to be border states," Mr Lubbers noted.
He warned: "If we are not careful, we risk overwhelming fragile and under-resourced asylum systems in the new EU member states.
"There are new EU states in central Europe which currently only have ten or 15 asylum assessors. A decade ago, they had no asylum systems at all," Mr Lubbers said. "What is going to happen if thousands of extra asylum seekers are sent back to them from the inner EU countries?
"There is a danger the harmonised procedures may simply collapse in the new border states, leading to more - instead of less - irregular movement between the EU states."
UNHCR officials today asked rich EU states to help poorer new members from eastern Europe cope with rising numbers of asylum seekers.
But the idea was dismissed in advance by the EU's biggest paymaster Germany, which said new members had to accept the fact that EU membership had its disadvantages as well as advantages.
"You cannot...just take the advantages and then expect the costs to be paid by the rest of the Union," Germany's Mr Otto Schily said ahead of talks between the EU ministers and Mr Lubbers. "We do not want to increase our contribution."
